271 Photos of the Same Face

Dua Lipa has one of those faces that doesn’t make sense the more you look at it—the eyes, the nose, the proportions, the permanent expression of total impassivity that reads as both bored and threatening at the same time. Like she’s about to say something that will end you and genuinely cannot be bothered to enjoy it. I have a folder on my laptop called "Dua Lipa Face." It contains 271 photographs. All of them are her face.

For the record: I also think she’s a genuinely great pop artist whose work has inspired a whole generation of younger listeners to take songwriting seriously. That’s true, I mean it. But if I’m honest with myself about why I keep returning to her, it’s the face.

She posted beach photos to Instagram—brown skin, sunlight, water, the whole thing very deliberately composed by someone who understands desire. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t look, because I did. But while everyone else was apparently busy calculating cup sizes and wondering exactly how much she waxes, I was just staring at her face again. All 271 of them. Still inexplicable. Still perfect.