Unconditionally Overdressed

Katy Perry singing about love without conditions while wearing Chanel in the snow is exactly the kind of contradiction that makes her interesting. Unconditionally is a proper power ballad—big, open, emotionally direct in a way that’s almost unfashionable—and Brent Bonacorso’s video dresses it in Dolce & Gabbana and Wes Gordon and turns it into something that looks like a very expensive perfume ad.

There’s always been a gap in Perry’s work between the sincerity of the feeling and the maximalism of the presentation, and usually she bridges it with spectacle—fireworks, cartoon colors, the general sense that everything will be fine and also enormous. Here she does it with couture and cinematography that’s genuinely beautiful: cool, pale, wide. Somehow it works. The song doesn’t need the clothes to be earnest. The clothes don’t undercut the song. They coexist in this expensive, slightly surreal space where she gets to be heartbroken and immaculate at the same time.

Which is kind of her whole thing, when you think about it.