One day we're told to embrace our natural beauty, and the next there's a new product promising to fix something we didn't even know was wrong with our faces. Keeping up with the beauty industry's ever-changing standards can be exhausting, particularly when growing older is increasingly treated as something to prevent at all costs. FLEUR ROUGE has had enough of it. Inspired by what she calls the “perfection whiplash” of the beauty industry, the London-based alt-pop artist takes aim at these impossible expectations with her new single, Pretty Privilege.
And she has a point. Between filtered faces and the endless pressure to stay desirable, we've somehow accepted that wrinkles are something to fear. Meanwhile, men seem to enjoy a different set of rules. As Fleur points out, society continues to tell us that men age like wine while women age like milk. It's an absurd comparison, but one that says plenty about how differently we're encouraged to think about getting older.
“This song was birthed when I was fed up of feeling like ageing as a woman in society is seen as this disease,” Fleur explains. “I don't wanna be paralysed by the fear of seeing lines on my face as I get older and we gotta switch up the narrative.” Her frustration becomes a sharp, playful alt-pop track driven by gritty guitars and infectious production, proving that having something important to say doesn't mean losing your sense of humour.
Born in London and raised in France, FLEUR ROUGE has developed a taste for exposing the contradictions of modern life. Her previous single, Small Talk, tackled the exhausting world of online dating, and both tracks will feature on her forthcoming five-track EP, created with producers Dustin Dooley and Nathan Challinor.
