Doja Cat covers L’Officiel Art’s Spring 2023 global issue, with the interview and fashion cover story published in L'Officiel Paris, Italia and USA. You can find it on newsstands now in all three countries.

Photographer Greg Lotus [IG] brings an extra dose of image artistry to photographs that are in alignment not only with an excellent, beneath-the-surface interview by Marisa Meltzer of the uber-talent Doja Cat.

They should make a good team — Doja Cat and Greg Lotus — because both creative spirits mix classical influences in finished works that are definitively modern. Lotus employs a technique or two AOC hasn’t seen in current fashion photography and I hope it’s not a one off. Wrong! Lotus did an entire story in ‘Double Vision’ Vogue Japan 2016.

The contrast of ‘rustic’ animals with high fashion glamour is a known Greg Lotus technique.

‘I’m One Person Who Will Not Exist Again’

Doja Cat’s stylist Greg Alan Nelson includes unique looks from Area, Dilara Findikoglu, Off-White, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, Schiaparelli and more.

Presumably, they are peeling Harris Reed off the ceiling, after including his superb creations that are perfect for Doja Cat, who says:

I’m one person who will not exist again. There’s not more than one of me. So whatever I do, it’s going to be original . . .

but admires greatly the simple, fashion elegance of Angelina Jolie.

TIME 100 Honors

The L’Officiel Art cover message says it all: ‘DOJA CAT Has Arrived’. Indeed she has, stepping into that unique limelight of the new TIME 100 The World’s Most Influential People List.

Baz Luhrmann makes unusually flattering comments about Doja Cat’s talents and approach to project execution. Then again, The TIME cover communicates its own elite talent circle message. Doja and Baz worked together on ‘Elvis’.

Sequined by Schiaparelli

As numerous press reports note, the talent’s effort to pull off that Schiaparelli happening during Paris Fashion Week in March warants an ‘endurance-under-fire’ trophy. The particulars of Doja being very ill, while being meticuously covered with red sequins are detailed in the interview.

The star is all in on the project conceived by Schiaparelli, even though she may vomit any moment with a severe gastrointestinal health problem. Pat McGrath kept giving her gingerale in between covering her with a layer of red paint and then gluing on the sequins individually. With a physical body in total revolt, as many as four human bodies were covering Doja in sequins at the same time — because everyone knew the press would be on steroids, beyond their collective imaginations.

It was. The show did go on with flashbulbs and fireworks. No one knew that Doja Cat was close to passing out more than once. Marissa Meltzer asks her:

MM: It was worth it, right?
DC: Yeah, definitely. I’m very, very proud of it.

Doja Cat’s tastes in music tell us much about her personality. “I listen to a lot of music, but I listen to music that I don’t make. I listen to some Japanese House. Dead Can Dance. Drop Nineteens. I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins.” She explains that Cocteau Twins won’t influence her.

But it’s definitely a place for me where my mind can rest when I hear music like that. I avoid listening to rap. I don’t listen to anyone’s music because I feel like that influence is so strong. I don’t live under a rock, but I do tread lightly, because sometimes I definitely can emulate the people that I love the most. And I’m trying to be original.

The theme of orginality is so strong with the star in her interview, but — whether she knows it or not — so is a quiet theme of ethics around her creative process. And obligations to her team and co-creators. For someone with a strong ego and a lot of confidence, Doja Cat treads softly. Her approach is very refreshing. ~ Anne