Billie Eilish has always tried to subvert expectations of what female singers should wear onstage.
In an interview for Complex, the Bad Guy singer reflected on how she developed her signature style.
"It's hard to be a woman in a lot of ways, and one of them is that as an artist, you're expected to have a certain stage presence, wear a leotard, have a bunch of make-up, get your hair done, wear high heels, and have background singers and backup dancers. Those are all things that I have seen my whole life, and I've never seen anything else, it feels like, with women," she told the outlet.
The 22-year-old explained that she never saw herself in female artists and instead longed to be like their male counterparts, who can "just be running around onstage" without "all that other stuff".
"I would just completely wallow in despair, because I was like, 'I'll never get to do that. I'll never be a man. I'll never get to have that kind of stage presence,'" Billie admitted. "And I f**king worked for eight years to get to a place where that's what I do. I figured out a way to perform in the exact way that I wanted to, and be the artist that I wanted to."
When she first became famous, the Happier Than Ever star became known for her baggy, androgynous clothes. She later started to feel boxed in by this and rebelled by dressing like a "girly girl" before circling back to her original style.
"I really just did it to prove a point. I was just like, 'F**k you guys. I can do whatever I want. And then I can go back to what I was doing before, and you guys can eat it,'" Billie noted of her style evolution.
"Once I did that, it was like, 'Now I'm free and I can do anything that I want. And that box is gone.' Whether or not other people felt like this, I feel like I freed myself from the box," she declared.