When Emmy The Great Went Record Shopping with DJ Chelsea Leyland…

If you’ve been planning a NY fashion week party, chances are you tried to book Chelsea Leyland as your DJ. Chelsea is a 25 year-old Londoner in New York, and her name has been one of the non-designer buzzwords of the past week or so, bringing music to runway shows and events to a list of designers (Naeem Khan, DKNY, Suno, Vince…) so exhaustive you could use it to track next season’s trends.

Ahead of fashion week, I tempted Chelsea out into the polar vortex, to another British import in New York—Brooklyn’s newly opened Rough Trade record store. I wanted to flick through records with her, to talk about music, a little about clothes, and just generally being a cool London girl. I love cool London girls (see Alexa Chung). Actually, I remembered Chelsea from London. A year ago I had seen her in a photo on Kilo Kish’s Tumblr, and I’d experienced a flash of recognition, a muddled memory of someone shy and friendly in some grotty East London bar (probably the Alibi), hanging with a crowd that included the photographer/ model Alice Dellal, My Crazy Scrunchie founder Laura Fraser and Shuga’s Emma Chitty. A couple of links on, I discovered that in the time between my evening in ‘some pub’ and my evening on Kilo Kish’s Tumblr, Chelsea had found the time to take a bunch of photos standing behind the decks in various outfits, making peace signs with Diane Von Furstenburg, posing with various emerging superstars: Kish, Cara Delevigne, the stylist Kate Foley. Her website also informed me that she was a DJ, and had opened for Diplo and Niki Minaj, and played venues like the Hollande Museum in Israel. Not bad for four years away.

I’m not going to say that DJing is a man’s world, but DJ Mag’s top 100 DJs of 2014 list is currently only 1% woman, and that woman was inserted after an online furore over the original 0% lineup. It’s fair to say that our perspective of DJing is that it is a man’s world, despite the fact, as this exhaustive list proves, it is super not. With that in mind, it would be easy to pigeonhole Chelsea, loved by the fashion media, as some kind of celebrity button pusher—someone with a recognisable face who shows up to stuff, wearing stuff, plays some stuff, then goes home with free stuff and your entire year’s wages.

(Yes that is a thing, don’t get bummed. Think of how their lives are unbearable cause of all the jetlag.)

Actually, Chelsea’s relationship with the fashion world fascinated me, because she’s not kicking against it, she’s actually using it. Her website includes, alongside her mixtapes, a list of must have clothing and beauty products (including this Chrisopher Kane camo skirt, and this outrageous Tiger print Kenzo sweater).

And why not? I like Chelsea because she’s unashamedly glossy. She’s a bit Blair Waldorf, but she’s also a bit Peaches. Lipgloss, then Berghain.

Speaking while flicking through the stacks at Rough Trade, I discovered that she’s in process of transitioning into a career as a producer-DJ. There’s lots of routes to this—the an art scene like Miss Kittin, a label scene like A-Trak, clubs like the Chemical Brothers—but she’s actually arrived at it via some of the most exclusive parties in multiple world cities. Again, I find that interesting. Fashion likes to borrow from the romance of rock and roll to sell its brands (sup, Saint Laurent), but the path from fashion to music is littered with disaster (and solo albums by models). To see someone gather steam on the fashion party circuit, and use that steam to launch a credible music career is kind of awesome. It’s also really smart. Here’s the conversation we had at Rough Trade.

Oh hey, Harry Styles.

Emma-Lee Moss: I remember you from years back, you must have been barely 21. When and how did you start DJing?

Chelsea: Three years ago or so. A friend of mine, Ben Watts [brother of the actress Naomi], throws these amazing July 4th parties, and he asked me to DJ before I even was a DJ. I thought, “Okay, I’ll put together a few playlists.” I was in New York, and I studying drama and going to auditions. My boyfriend at the time told me I should pursue DJing, cause he liked my tastes, so I took classes.

Like DJ school?

With a DJ at his house, but yeah, people always have a chuckle about that. It seems so normal to me, cause if you want to paint, you have to learn to paint. By the way, that party was 300 people that year, it’s now grown to about 4000. Nick Drake is one of my all time favorites. [Chelsea pulls out Tom Waits’ Blue Valentine and Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left]

What kind of music did you grow up listening to?

When I was 11 I was listening to Muddy Waters and Joni Mitchell, as well as, obviously, Spice Girls and the rest of it.

Would you DJ something like Nick Drake and Tom Waits?

I used to, but I’m more into house and deep house these days. I was never into electronic music, until I started going to Berlin a few years ago, and I discovered Berghain. That’s where I developed this love for EDM—it just keeps growing every year. I don’t get the same feel from other types of music anymore.

Do you think that’s to do with audience reaction?

100%. It’s like a drug. Once you’re up there and you see people going crazy, they’re so focused on you, and you’re taking them on a journey. It’s the most rewarding feeling in the world. This is a good one. [Picks up Cupid Deluxe by Blood Orange.]

Dev is a New Yorker from London as well.

Yeah, I see him around.

Oh hey Dev! Do you miss London at all?

I go back every three months, but I’m here now. I’ve been here six years – it’s like you love it and you hate it, you know?

Do you have a crew here that you roll around with?

Yeah, they’re all Brits. You know when you’re on the tube in London, and you think “Fucking Australians.” I think they must feel that way about us here.

You must have one American friend, I actually first heard about you on Kilo KIsh’s Tumblr…

She’s doing well, isn’t she? She’s great and super talented. She just sang at my birthday. She does a lot of campaigns as well.

Where do you discover new music?

The internet, British radio. I would love to say record stores, but I don’t anymore. My record collection is in London, and I use a program called Serato and two blank records to mix. I feel like DJs are expected to have a lot of records, but it’s not really my generation. This is one of my favorite new discoveries, do you know it? Nicholas Jaar—I am obsessed with him. Everything he does is brilliant. I want him to be my future husband, but I met him recently and he has a girlfriend.