Clothes That “Let Me Be Me:” Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly Talk Fashion at Dolce & Gabbana

Late on Saturday night at a dinner for around 40 people in Milan’s Martini Bar, Colson Baker and Domenico Dolce proposed a toast. It was to celebrate a headline-making engagement that had just gone down a storm. Because the engagement wasn’t the one you might be thinking of, however, there was no question that we drank anything but Prosecco. The toast and the dinner we’d just finished was to celebrate that afternoon’s highly-collaborative menswear show at which the fall 2022 menswear collection by Dolce & Gabbana had shared the Teatro Metropole runway with Machine Gun Kelly (Baker’s high-caliber stage name). As Vogue Runway’s review recounted, it was a blast.

By the end of the night Baker, who seems super gregarious as a matter of course, and his partner Megan Fox, who was wearing this and is by comparison is watchful and reserved, at least when talking to journalists she’s barely met (which is fair enough), were on chilled form. We compared first-ever gigs (Fox’s was N’Sync, Baker’s Backstreet Boys, and mine Blur), debated the downsides of digitally-led media (The New Yorker should pitch these guys for a deep-dive profile, a full three-monther), and compared Sunday plans: they were heading to Lake Como.

Earlier that day I’d met the newly affianced couple for a brief interview after the show. Because I’d seen on a sweet GQ video that Baker is a massive graphic novel fan, we warmed up by comparing our fondness for The Sandman (Fox gave Baker all 72 issues of the original imprint for Christmas) and chatting about Baker’s own graphic novel, Hotel Diablo. And then we started that uniquely awkward conversational dance that unfolds between celebrities who have recently enjoyed a massively-covered life event and journalists who they have agreed to meet but would really rather not spill further personal beans to. Here, delicately edited, is how it went.

You finished today by playing your track “My Bloody Valentine,” which is also the name of one of my all-time favorite bands.

Colson Baker: Yes! Cool! I hope they know that that title was a little ode to them, and that I didn’t think it was an original.

And you were in that video too Megan…

Baker: That was when we were first falling for each other.

So is this big Dolce statement the beginning of an ongoing brand ambassador-y thing?

Baker: With I, yes.

With you?

Baker: Yes, with me. With I? What am I, from the 1400s? Thank you for correcting me.

No, I’m sorry to correct! You have a new album which I’ve read is called Born With Horns coming out soon—are we going to see you wearing lots of Dolce in the videos and on tour and all of that?

Baker: Yes. The cool part of this thing with Dolce & Gabbana is that we were always kind of fore-playing with each other. I was like, oh, it’d be so cool to have some outfits for the tour or this show or for this red carpet. And they have the quickest turnaround I’ve ever seen, and for such beautiful pieces too.

That’s because they have ateliers full of expert tailors, seamstresses, and specialist artisans across Milan.

Baker: They have it all! I was shooting something earlier and I was like ‘oh, my facial hair is a little too much, is there any way we can get some clippers’ and they were like ‘no don’t worry, we have our own barbershop right around the corner.’ Their own barbershop!

So when musicians perform at fashion shows it can be tricky. Because the performer is used to being the center of attention and the audience is there for the collection. But you walked today and then complemented the rest of the show with the performance—which even better, while it was played to a backing track, was sung and played by you live.

Baker: Thank you. I felt a lot of pressure. Everything I did was live, because I’ve watched a lot of awards shows where other acts have a guitar in the band but it isn’t live, and I’m just like ‘what is happening?’

Congratulations on your engagement, which has become a huge mega-story. Did you anticipate that?

Megan Fox: [To Baker] Are you aware of it? I don’t really look at social media or anything, so I don’t know.

But it came out on social media, right?

Fox: Yeah.

Baker: We released it to control the narrative. As opposed to someone just catching a weird cell phone picture of a ring on our hand and being like, whoa! But yeah, I didn’t expect it. I just recorded it on my cell phone. And it wasn’t like we had photographers or anything. It was just like me setting my phone against a cup.

Well, congratulations: may I please see your engagement ring? [Fox shows me her sparkler] Nice! I read in Vogue that you commissioned Stephen Webster: can you give us the lowdown?

Baker: It’s a thoroughbred Colombian emerald, with no treatment. It was just carved into the teardrop, straight out of the mine. And the diamond was directly from Stephen. The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings. When it’s together, it’s held in place by a magnet. So you see how it snaps together? And then it forms an obscure heart. And you see this right here? The bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts…

That’s very nice..

Baker: Love is pain!

There will be blood. So off the engagement but sticking with you two—and staying fashion-y— since you got together have you affected each other’s sense of style?

Fox: Mine has definitely changed. Before it wasn’t something I was focused on or thought about. Because as an actress I had been classified or put in the category of being a sex symbol. And publicists come in and they bring in a stylist and it’s all about dressing more seriously, so that the world will take you more seriously as an actor. But they weren’t dressing me the way in which I liked to express myself. So I kind of gave up on fashion. I was like, I don’t fucking care, whatever you put me in because I’m not going to like it anyway.

Until I met him. Musicians have so much freedom to express themselves in the way that they dress. They can be so much more flamboyant than actors usually can. Prior to being famous everyone who knew me always knew that I would always wear one really insane piece, and everybody would be like, “you dress weird.” And it wasn’t until I was molded and had to dress one way that I gave up on that. And being with him, obviously, he’s slightly eccentric in the way that he dresses—and that has freed me up to express myself more. And he helped hook me up with Maeve Reilly, my stylist.

Baker: I’ve known her for many years.

So what has Maeve brought you?

Fox: She’s adventurous too. And she wants to dress me the way that I feel. Obviously if you see some of the things she’s put me in we’re not trying to run away from it: we’re leaning into it. Which is fun, because this has never felt aligned with my personality before.

It’s weird this machine you talk about that dresses you in ‘real life’ appearances to fulfill a role, even if it is one you don’t want.

Fox: Yeah, and it’s a bizarre machine to have to fight against too. I remember we got all these racks of dresses for the Golden Globes, and I hated all of them. I was like, well, where’s the stuff that lets me be me—where’s the good stuff? Let me be a Marylin, let me be who I am, why are you sending me shit that doesn’t fit? Ladies’ lunch at Barneys? I don’t dress like that! And the publicists would say ‘well, these are the best dresses that are being designed right now.’ So like like, fuck it, I don’t like clothes. And then I was with him and it was like: oh, these clothes exist? OK!