People / TV

Enter Blood Orange’s Baroque-style fantasy in the music video for Benzo

Having freshly released his new mix tape, Angel’s Pulse, Blood Orange (Devonté ‘Dev’ Hynes) is sharing his self-directed music video for Benzo. One of the mix tape’s more delicate tracks, the visual companion is a feast for the senses. Self-directed by Hynes, the film draws inspiration from Marie Antoinette and gives a nod to New York City’s 80s drag scene. Hynes takes us inside a kind of twisted Baroque world, where aristocratic figures lounge on cowhide Eames chairs, and a neon Blood Orange sign decorates the walls.

The video begins with singer and frequent Blood Orange collaborator, Ian Isiah, in the role of the Queen, decked out in a royal green gown that Hynes has loaned from the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art while he bemoans that Mr. Orange is running late. Hynes comes through the door, starts to play the cello and the track begins.

The film’s wardrobe, envisioned with stylish Emily Schubert, is a highlight. It plays heavily on the exuberance of the Baroque period, but Schubert chooses to embrace the mish-mashed influences of the film. There’s a whole lot going on but somehow it all seems to meld. Hynes’s outfit is emblematic of this, he rushes into frame in a blue-tinted Rococco-style wig, a green marbled skivvy, blue culottes, and Margiela Tabi Boots completing the ensemble. In a world where nothing belongs, everything seems to fit.