Playground magazine

At this stage of the game, writing something original about Elisabeth Grant seems practically impossible. This is the girl who went from scraping by in a trailer park on the outskirts of New Jersey to being lynched for her (almost) debut on the sacrosanct Saturday Night Live - after 20 million people watched “Videogames” on YouTube. Her story has been told so regularly - and spread so widely - that she is dangerously on the verge of saturation (thus, boredom). But what is it about Lana Del Rey that makes it so hard for the world to resist giving us their opinions on her? Whatever it is, it is true that she has reached the status of a pop product (that is: music is no longer the most important thing when she is talked about) in record time.

To start with, Lana has an image that has been studied down to the millimetre, one that could be described as a very skilfully-created post-modern femme fatale: she has a 50s look and wavy hair cut Lana Turner-style, mixed with a few “gangsta” details and a bit of that bizarre chic that David Lynch fans like. The best of yesterday and today mixed without complexes, like the images that she edited for the clip of “Videogames” (a bittersweet cocktail of 90s skaters, homemade Super 8 fragments and old cartoons). She has defined herself as a “gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and “a Lolita lost in the forest”.

Her style: in her perfectly-handled appearances in the media, so far Lana has shown an obsessive predilection for white dresses (lace is another of her favourites), trainers (combined with big hoops, the subtle bling is already her trademark) and short tops (she has always been one more likely to show her navel than her cleavage; unlike the majority of the pop star system, she’s not one to show cleavage at the drop of a hat). To her passion for good-girl pastel dresses and flowers in general (Tavi Gevinson herself paid homage a few days ago to the crown of pink flowers that Lana often wears), she adds an aversion to high heels and an obsession with patriotic stars and stripes. All told, the disturbing (and apparently, given what we’ve seen, very exciting) look of a decent Republican who goes to church on Sunday and then does her evil deeds in secret, while continuing to look as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.