Street Fighting Man

When it comes to fashion, the right answer often is a simple what the hell. After all, developing a strong personal style requires breaking ranks with the uniformed masses. As any good renegade or rock star will tell you—including electro-pop sensation BØRNS, seen here—a step out of your comfort zone is a  step in the right direction.

- Laurence Lowe

AS A TEN-YEAR-OLD working magician in the lakeside resort town of Grand Haven, Michigan, Garrett Borns went by the name of Garrett the Great. He performed at countless birthday parties, staged a weekly show at a local red-sauce joint, and even starred in his own instructional magic video, for which he also built the sets and composed the music. Now, at 24, as he powers through an ever-expanding world tour in support of his retrofuturistic debut album, Dopamine, the glam-pop prince known professionally as BØRNS is drawing on lessons that he learned from his sleight-of-hand days. “How to improvise when you fuck up,” he explains. “Pretending like you still know what’s going on and then trying to recover from it. It kind of thickens your skin. That’s pretty much been the past year and a half of my life.”