Dum Dum Girls’ Dee Dee Penny spices up her look with mix of styles
Dee Dee Penny has a real penchant for black vintage garb, such as high-waisted glamazon shorts and sheer mesh tops, and second-skin leather jackets and mini-dresses. It’s a gothic-meets-go-go-girl look that signals a readily identifiable aesthetic for Penny — and one that might work well for an indie pop band.
Enter the Dum Dum Girls.
Penny (born Kristin Gundred in San Leandro, Calif.) created the Girls as a solo project in 2008. Now she’s the fashionable frontwoman of a five-member group, comprising drummer Sandra Vu, bassist Malia James and guitarists Jules Medeiros and Andrew Miller, on tour to promote their third studio album, “Too True,” released on Sub Pop Records in January. Concertgoers will be able to experience the group’s ‘60s-girl-band-meets-’80s-post-punk vibe at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio on April 11 and 18 and at the Roxy in West Hollywood on April 17.
Penny, 31, shares an apartment in New York City with husband Brandon Welchez, who fronts the garage punk band Crocodiles. But she spends time in Los Angeles as well, and she holed up in the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood to write tracks for the current album.
Appearing solo on the cover of “Too True,” Penny is wearing a Saint Laurent Swarovski crystal-embellished mesh bodysuit from the fall 2013 collection.
“It’s definitely not something I could wear in real life, like Beyoncé,” she says, referring to the similar Saint Laurent tights that Beyoncé paired with a sheer bodysuit for her Grammy Awards performance in January. “But the [album cover] look is what I tried to re-create on tour with sheer tops [and high-waisted velvet shorts]. I tend to wear the same couple of outfits when I tour.
“Everything I have is custom from small designers,” Penny adds. “I’ve most recently worked with the Baroness, a latex designer in New York’s East Village, who altered some pieces, because I like everything shorter.” Another label that comes up frequently in conversation is L.A.-based the Reformation, which revamps vintage pieces and creates limited-edition styles from dead stock fabrics.
On the road, Penny wears more casual, all-black ensembles, such as a silk top and leggings with a beret, “giant boots” and Karen Walker sunglasses. Her other accessories of the moment are the autobiographies of musicians Neil Young and Morrissey.
As for fashion icons, Penny cites Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees, who shares her love of dark eyeliner and cherry red lipstick, and Debbie Harry of Blondie.
The one beauty product that Penny can’t live without? Black eyeliner, which she uses to create her ‘60s-inspired cat-eye look.
“I spent hundreds of dollars trying to find a black liner that would not run,” she says. “I tried everything, from $5 drugstore brands to YSL, and I ended up finding this [Los Angeles] brand Milani’s Infinite Liquid Eyeliner for $6.99 at Walgreens.”
