This summer, Charli XCX proclaimed that she’s “so Julia.” And while it’s true that 2023 was the year of a thousand Fox imitators, these days we’ve been obsessed with another of the pop star’s muses: Gabbriette.
The mononymous, tattoo-covered, 27-year-old “It” girl, born Gabriella Bechtel, is having a sensational 2024. This model turned musician turned TikTok chef has been dominating social-media feeds, magazines, and billboards all year long with her trademark jet-black hair (recently bleached honey blonde), Pamela Anderson–thin brows, and rock-and-roll attitude with the all-leather wardrobe to match. Gabbriette feels like the second coming of ’90s Angelina Jolie, circa the blood-vial necklaces, wrapped up in a Gen-Z package. She’s Elvira if Elvira were really into vegan, grain-free cooking and cigarettes.
After being cast in the music video for “After the Afterparty” in 2018, Gabbriette was hand-selected by Charli XCX to be the lead vocalist of her now-defunct punk band, Nasty Cherry. That’s how Gabbriette found herself on the short list of influencers who inspired the pop star’s summer-defining album Brat, appearing in the “360” music video alongside fellow downtown sweethearts like Julia Fox and Rachel Sennott. She’s actually called out by name in the first verse of the song, her cult-icon status cemented with the lyric “I’m your favorite reference, baby / Call me Gabbriette, you’re so inspired.” She’s basically Brat royalty.
Growing up feeling like an outsider in her hometown of Orange County, Gabbriette moved to Los Angeles at 16 with dreams of pursuing ballet, only to wind up dancing in a Blood Orange music video (she was ultimately cut from the final edit). From there, she was scouted as a model and has been working consistently ever since, honing her high-fashion goth aesthetic. But it wasn’t until the last couple of years that her career really began to take off as she booked more and more coveted campaigns for brands like Marc Jacobs, Skims, Bottega Veneta, Nike, and Agent Provocateur. Not only is she walking in big runway shows, she’s now sitting front row at them, and she has even started landing her own covers and feature profiles in major fashion publications like Elle, Vogue, Highsnobiety, and CR Fashion Book. A number of outlets have also dubbed her the originator of the “succubus chic” trend, a vampire-inspired beauty look that has been adopted by everyone from Amelia Gray to Kylie Jenner.
During the pandemic, much like the rest of the world, Gabbriette turned to TikTok to stave off the boredom of lockdown and began posting cooking videos that quickly went viral. She became known as much for her witchy appearance in the kitchen as her healthier renditions of decadent dishes. These recipes have become so popular she’s spent the last two years slowly pulling together a cookbook that she hopes to release next summer. Last year she even told Vogue she’d like to open a café one day where she can also explore her love of interior design, immersing her fans in the carefully curated world of Gabbriette.
But Gab fever really went into overdrive after she was spotted kissing the 1975 front man Matty Healy last summer, a few months after his high-profile breakup with Taylor Swift. In an interview with Homme Girls, Gabbriette revealed that she and Healy had actually been circling each other for some time, trying to meet up for four years: “He came to L.A. and we’ve been in love ever since.” In fact, the couple got engaged in June 2024, announcing the happy news after a night out at Charli XCX’s Sweat tour in Brooklyn. Gabbriette posted multiple photos of herself to Instagram wearing a very large black diamond engagement ring, reportedly custom designed by Healy, with the caption, “MARRYING THE 1975 IS VERY BRAT.”
She’ll be making her first foray into film next year: She revealed to Elle in October that she’s currently in Australia filming I’ll Never Forget What You Did Last Summer, the next installment of the classic ’90s horror franchise. And, in further proof that everything Gabbriette touches turns to gold, after modeling a leather kitchen apron she designed in collaboration with R&M Leathers for a Heaven by Marc Jacobs campaign, the brand went on to make lighters featuring those same images that were apparently so sought after their London flagship store put a sign on the door that read, “Yes! We still have Gabbriette lighters!” Her recent collaboration with M.A.C Cosmetics on a nude lipstick, gloss, and pencil combo was another instant sellout.
It seems that no matter what Gabbriette does, she can’t help but influence the masses, whether it’s her very ’90s makeup, motorcycle-chick uniform complete with pet rat, or insouciant approach to all of this newfound fame. Her unique look has even inspired a whole cottage industry of social-media accounts dedicated to following her every move, like Instagram account @gabbriettecloset which documents the model’s daily looks. She pulls heavily from designer vintage she finds on eBay, Mercari, and Grailed, favoring old Jil Sander, Prada, and Tom Ford’s Gucci — all of which you can now buy straight off her back, as she announced in September that she will be selling her old clothes on her newly launched Depop account, naturally.
Beyond the Brat of it all, it also makes sense that culturally we’d gravitate toward Gabbriette’s darker glam-rock aesthetic as it’s the antithesis of the year of trends we just lived through. Her all-black, bad-girl persona flies in the face of 2023’s hot-pink Barbie mania, balletcore, and bow-laden, hyperfemme coquettes. She’s the “Dirrty”-era Christina to 2023’s Disney-ified Britney vibes. And she feels like a return to those turn-of-the-millennium party girls as well with her effortlessly disheveled hair, smoldering gaze, and low-slung, skin-tight clothes, a cigarette permanently affixed to her hand. Gabbriette has said that her look is inspired by everything from ’50s pinup girls to dominatrixes — tough, no nonsense, yet undeniably sexy. And most important, 100 percent authentically herself. No wonder 2024 was so Gabbriette.