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"   Photo: Kate Owen  It is very late on a Sunday night and Sydney Wayser and I are talking about sex. We&amp;#039;re underground, sitting in a corner table in Little Branch, a candle-lit, jazzy West Village hangover from that period in the last decade where Speakeasies were the thing. It&amp;#039;s fun to talk about sex with Wayser. She&amp;#039;s so impeccably gorgeous that the idea of any crass thoughts emerging from her cortex is almost riveting. Secondly, she&amp;#039;s part French, raised in California, and lives in Brooklyn, a framework that connotes the beguiling, openness and knowing qualities that make for good, sexy chat. I&amp;#039;m far from the only one who sees this stirring side of Wayser. Her new album, Bell Choir Coast, a dreamy, throaty collection (fitting somewhere between Marianne Faithful and Regina Spektor on the songstress spectrum), provides the soundtrack for Billabong&amp;#039;s new Summer Swim video, where New Zealander Zippora Seven cavorts by her lonesome on a sandy cove, Wayser&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Dream It Up&amp;quot; scores each playful step through the sand and every shake of Seven&amp;#039;s bikini-clad rump. Wayser&amp;#039;s song doesn&amp;#039;t contain the hard-driving surf pop, or the limp, Jack Johnson riffs you&amp;#039;d expect from such a video, it&amp;#039;s deeper, almost otherworldly. Which makes sense, because that&amp;#039;s where Wayser&amp;#039;s new album comes from\u2014another world. &amp;quot;Bell Choir Coast is about a fictional land where I was able to start over, discover myself and learn to take life a lot less seriously,&amp;quot; says Wayser. It was an escape for the singer\u2014who wanted to be anywhere but in New York City\u2014a chance to lose herself in a fantasy. At the same time, the sound is incredibly intimate and paired down, just her and a close friend making music.        The fantastic and the personal are notions that combine in Wayser&amp;#039;s look, as well. &amp;quot;For this new chapter in my life, I wanted an article of clothing or accessory that I could wear at shows that made me feel confident and strong,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I asked my designer friend, Sam Klemick, to make a headdress for me drawing inspiration from 1920\u2032s head pieces, Athena and Joan of Arc. Before each show, I have this quiet meditative moment where I put the headdress on and gather my thoughts and strength. The headdress is a reminder of the person I aspired to be while writing my record and each time I put it on I feel a little closer to her.&amp;quot; Tucked into our corner table, Wayser seems very much in this moment, very down to earth\u2014her jeans and plaid flannel shirt a testament to the relaxed, elegant vibe that pervades her entire aesthetic. She&amp;#039;s comfortable in this bar, in this skin; off stage, there&amp;#039;s no need for a headdress. &amp;quot;I love mixing and matching patterns, styles old and new, feminine and masculine and drawing inspiration from characters like Annie Hall,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s gotta be comfortable and make me feel good. I&amp;#039;m all for skinny jeans, a flowing blouse, patterned flats and chunky jewels.&amp;quot; The sexiness that pervades Wayser&amp;#039;s look, her sound, her entire aesthetic comes down to truth, to authenticity, to the intersection of where&amp;#039;s she&amp;#039;s been and where she is now. The hippie songstress; the perfectly comported Parisian; the New Yorker laughing about the licentious in this dark, expensive bar. &amp;quot;Hailing from Los Angeles and Paris I fit right in with the crystal loving hippie look, but also feel at home with the sophisticated city style of Paris. Seeing as how I have ended up geographically in the middle of these two cities, in New York, I like to think my fashion sense is somewhere in the middle as well,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;One part rainbows and one part berets.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a8854/sydney-wayser-rainbows-berets-40744/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>