What’s in your bag, Ryn Weaver?
“Here, you can just go through my bag.”
When singer Ryn Weaver leaves to get a coffee in the other room, I suddenly become hyper-aware of the fact that her manager’s watching me, elbow-deep in her purse, rummaging through a mountain of lipsticks, cash and credit cards. (She has an actual stack of dollar bills in her bag—100 of them—as every celebrity should.)
“I like to fill my eyebrows in,” she says when she walks back into the room, likely because I’m staring at her super-full arches with more jealousy than I’ve felt in a long time. I’m meeting Weaver just a few weeks after her first-ever Coachella performance, where she was one of the most tweeted-about acts, behind the likes of FKA Twigs and Action Bronson.
“It was such a surreal experience, because I’m from California and I used to go [to Coachella]. I remember watching The xx in 2010, and it was a sunset show, and I was sitting there like, “I have to play.” And then two years ago I went with my best friend and I told her I was not going to come back until I played. But I didn’t think it would be [so soon].”
Weaver’s approach to health and beauty has definitely changed over the years. “I grew up on the beach,” she says. “The old beauty norm, to me at least, was the girls who walked around with their super-tanned bodies and bathing suits, hanging out at the beach. I used to lay out all the time to tan. Sun protection wasn’t a thing [back then]. Also, when you live somewhere that’s warm all the time, you focus a lot more on your body. Girls were talking about dieting in first and second grade, which is crazy. I remember in second grade, I went on a tangerine diet with my friend. We literally tried to only eat tangerines.”
“Not wearing sunscreen is my biggest regret,” Weaver continues. “I have no beauty regrets other than health things. Deciding to chop my hair off [myself after my graduation] was a statement. Sometimes it looked funny, but it was punk rock. [Not] washing my damn makeup off when I get home [is a regret]. I am awful and always fall asleep in my makeup. I was the girl who was always out partying too late and wakes up on someone’s couch. Oh, and plucking my eyebrows when I was young. That was the look [before]! Those skinny little eyebrows. That’s why I’ve decided that I don’t want to get laser hair removal [anywhere]. Lena Dunham posted the funniest tweet: ‘Support group for all the women who prematurely lasered off their pubic hair without realizing they might need it someday.’ I love a nice, groomed area, but I don’t necessarily think it has to be hairless. I’m not a child.”
When she realizes we’ve somehow landed on the topic of pubic hair, I ask if she’d like that part off the record. “Oh, no, I don’t give a fuck,” she responds. “Women are constantly being taught that they have to hide themselves. It leads into this terrible gender dynamic where men are strong and women are weak, shy, hidden. I don’t feel the need to hide myself. Unfortunately in the media women are [seen as] public property. And I am not about that.”
I ask her how she plans on avoiding it.
“By doing whatever the hell I want.”
FYI, you can pre-order Ryn Weaver’s debut album, The Fool and watch her latest video here.
Photography by Michelle Nunes
Photography by Michelle Nunes
Photography by Michelle Nunes
Photography by Michelle Nunes
Photography by Michelle Nunes
Photography by Michelle Nunes
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