Tate McRae has always understood the body as an instrument. A dancer long before she became one of pop’s most recognisable voices, movement has remained fundamental to the way she makes and presents her work. But increasingly, so has fashion.
For McRae, clothes don’t sit separately from performance. They inform it. A silhouette changes the line of a movement; a low waist alters proportion; something oversized creates its own momentum. McRae’s style has developed alongside her sound with a similar awareness of the body – and of what clothes can communicate once they’re actually moving.
It’s an idea that finds a natural home in her latest work with Calvin Klein. For the opening chapter of the house’s Fall 2026 Feel the Fit denim campaign, director Carlijn Jacobs strips the setting back and lets McRae do what she does best: perform.
There are echoes of the Calvin Klein of the 90s here – denim, skin, simplicity, a certain ease – but McRae brings a distinctly contemporary physicality to the frame. Choreographed by Sergio Reis to Deee-Lite’s Groove Is in the Heart, she moves through the film with the precision of someone who has spent much of her life understanding exactly what her body is doing.
“I loved being able to move, dance and bring my own energy to every look,” she says.
McRae belongs to a lineage of pop performers for whom choreography isn’t an accessory to the music, but part of the authorship of an artist. Fashion operates in much the same way. The jeans become interesting not because they are being worn by Tate McRae, but because of what she does with them: how fabric falls, how a silhouette changes in motion, how something as familiar as denim can take on a different attitude through the person wearing it.
Perhaps that’s where McRae’s relationship with fashion is most compelling. She doesn’t need clothes to create a character separate from herself. Instead, they become another material to work with – alongside sound, movement and image.
For an artist whose language has always begun with the body, getting dressed is simply another part of the choreography.
If you’re as obsessed with denim campaigns as we are, we’ve rounded up the most iconic denim campaigns over the years for your rewatching pleasure.
