Ariana Grande Explains Her "Sweatshirt & C*nty Boot" Fashion Era
“This was a very strange time in my life.”
Ariana Grande’s style evolution is famously drastic. She’s gone from her red-headed Nickelodeon beginnings to becoming a fully Glinda-fied blonde fashionista. But one of her most iconic sartorial eras came in the middle of those two extremes. Back in 2018, Grande became known for combining cozy tops with fiercely couture footwear — or, as she refers to it, her “sweatshirt and a c*nty boot” look. Now, she’s opening up about the deeper meaning behind this signature aesthetic.
The singer looked back on her standout style moments in a Jan. 27 Vogue video, and a paparazzi pic from 2018 gave her a bit of pause. In the photo, Grande was wearing an oversized black sweater with thigh-high boots.
“This was a very strange time in my life; I was processing a lot,” Grande recalled. “And I always wanted to hide away in something really cozy, but I remember that the boots still made me feel c*nt. I genuinely, at the time, did not have the mental energy to consider clothing, so the easiest thing for me was to throw on a sweatshirt and a c*nty boot, and that was how it happened. I'm sorry to say it, this is just the honest truth.”
Grande had an infamously chaotic year in 2018. Towards the start of the year, she broke up with her boyfriend of two years, Mac Miller. Shortly afterwards, she began a romance with Pete Davidson that moved incredibly quickly, with the couple getting engaged just weeks into their relationship.
That September, Miller died, leading Grande to mourn the loss of her former partner. A month later, Grande and Davidson had called off their engagement and broken up.
While Grande had been a media fixture for years before this point, 2018 was undoubtedly one of the hardest periods of her life that had also blown up into one of the most heavily picked apart by fans and celebrity media. At least she looked amazing in her signature sweaters while dealing with it all.
