Spiller’s ethos has long been a rock ‘n’ roll version of the adage, “Dress for the job you want.” The singer, 27, grew up in Bristol, England — “a really artsy place, you know, where anything goes” — where he enrolled in theater and began experimenting with makeup and women’s clothing as a teenager. “I remember wearing eyeliner to school when I was 15,” he says. “A few kids said stuff, but everyone else was like, ‘Well, that’s Luke the rock star’ … It was part of my character.” At home, things were more conservative: Spiller’s father is a preacher and his mother, “a devoted Christian with him. There wasn’t a huge amount of contemporary or even old school rock ‘n’ roll floating around the house,” he says. When the glam-rock revivalists The Darkness came to popularity in the early 2000s, piquing Spiller’s interest in the genre, encouragement came from an unlikely source. “I remember watching the video for ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love,’ and seeing that cat suit and the hair, and I was just like, ‘What is this?’ It was my mum who turned around and said, ‘You know, that sounds a lot like Queen.’”
Get the Look: Luke Spiller’s Glam Rock Makeup
Amy Lombard
When the Struts booked the Rolling Stones gig in 2014, it was Spiller’s mother who encouraged him to reach out to Zandra Rhodes, the English designer who outfitted both Mercury and the Queen guitarist Brian May, for help. Apprehensive but sensing the need for “something big,” Spiller sent an email expressing his admiration to Rhodes, who responded right away. “She said, ‘It’s really funny that you emailed, because it’s been years since I’ve actually worked with an artist.’” The pair spent an afternoon together in London, where Rhodes showed Spiller an original reference piece for the famous pleated white blouse she once made for Mercury. (Along with Mercury, Spiller’s “Mount Rushmore” of style icons includes Elvis Presley, T. Rex’s Marc Bolan and the recently deceased David Bowie.) In the end, she designed a pair of tops for Spiller, including a shimmering, cobalt blue frock with hand-painted gold accents that the singer uses to end his sets.
In total, Spiller estimates he wears “about 80 percent women’s clothes.” The Struts are regulars at Los Angeles thrift stores when they’re not on tour, where Spiller has developed an eye for picking out the kind of special pieces — like an all-in-one white kimono from Max Mara — that have become his calling card onstage. Still, he draws a distinction between his on and offstage personas. “What I would call high-end normal fashion — like the Kooples or John Varvatos — that’s like the casual rock ‘n’ roll wear. That’s what you wear to the airport. But when it comes to the stage, you have to bring a sense of occasion.”
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