Dua Lipa Covers Harper’s BAZAAR US Global ‘ICONS’ Issue

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For the Harper’s BAZAAR September 2025 ICONS issue, Dua Lipa was photographed by Anthony Seklaoui and styled by Harper’s BAZAAR style director at large, Carlos Nazario, to coincide with her American tour. Lipa spoke with Harper’s BAZAAR features director, Kaitlyn Greenidge, who caught up with Lipa on the European leg of her tour, and found a 30-year-old at the peak of her powers, newly in love, and determined to be a force for good. “You’ve got to f**king keep on the straight line and do something positive,” she says.

“I admire that Dua uses her platform to not just bring good vibes to sold-out stadiums of fans or inspire endless outfits with her sparkly stage and street style but also share diverse perspectives from some of the sharpest writers, thinkers, and creative minds through her podcast, newsletters, and website,” says Samira Nasr, Harper’s BAZAAR Editor-in-Chief.

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On how she approaches performing and how she wants to make ‘big spaces feel small’: “There’s a moment where I go out into the crowd,” Lipa says, “and that part of me is not the same person that I am when I’m just, like, singing and performing and dancing. When I’m singing the songs, I feel really powerful. The rooms get bigger. I want to make big spaces feel small.”

On being intentional with the things she writes: “I have this firm belief that whatever I write comes true. So I’m always very, very cautious about the things that I write. I’m not trying to put some crazy energy into the world. I’m trying to just be light and have fun and share my experiences.”

On creating art and how once she’s put something out in the world, she feels it no longer belongs to her: “Once I put something out into the world, it no longer belongs to me. You make the thing that you love; you make the thing that you’re passionate about and you’re proud of. You put it out in the world and you have to put your hands up. The people choose. We don’t get to choose.”

On working on her new album: “Sometimes overthinking is a gift,” Lipa says. She’s talking about her next album—new music that she’s thinking about even in the midst of her tour. “Every day I’m making something that sounds completely different from yesterday. Trying to figure out the new direction is probably the most fun part, but it’s also the hardest.”

On being ‘happier than ever’ with fiancé Callum Turner and allowing herself to love: “I love love. It is a beautiful thing. It’s a really inspiring thing. You find yourself so intensely falling all the time in the best way possible. That vulnerability is so scary, but I feel so lucky to get to feel it. I’ve spent a lot of time being guarded or protecting my heart, and so I’m letting go of that feeling and just being like, ‘Okay, if I’m supposed to get hurt, then this is what’s going to happen.’ I have to just allow love.” I ask how it feels to be speaking so candidly about her relationship. “I’m happier than ever, so it feels like I’m doing a disservice by not talking about it. … When you’re a public person, anything that’s very personal is very vulnerable. It’s not like I don’t want to share it.”

Mark Ronson on Dua possessing something increasingly rare in the entertainment space: a unique voice, both literally, in terms of its tone, and metaphorically, in terms of her art: “It’s just unde­niable. She just has a God-given thing.”

A few months ago, Ronson and Lipa were recording new mate­rial at a studio in New York. “We’ve been making music together for eight years now,” he says, “and she was singing this song. It’s a beautiful lyric about her relationship, and I just said to her, ‘I know this sounds really corny: I feel like I’m watching you now as a woman deliver these new songs and this vocal.’ She was always mature and grown-up, because of the way she grew up so fast. She always had her s**t together. But who she’s become now … this is a new era for her as a songwriter and as a singer and as a human.”

Story by: Kaitlyn Greenidge
Photographs by: Anthony Seklaoui
Styling by: Carlos Nazario

[Photo Credit: Anthony Seklaoui for Harper’s BAZAAR Magazine – Video Credit: Harper’s BAZAAR/YouTube]

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