Mara Weinstein’s Playlist for Tangled Headphones

For April’s PRESS PLAY, the producer-extraordinaire and keeper of fashion’s best-kept secrets shares a listening list for your most dramatic long-haul flight.

Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Mara Weinstein has quietly become a connective force behind some of fashion’s most charged work, counting Donna Trope, Steven Klein, and Nadia Lee Cohen among her closest collaborators. Her tastes are particular but immaculate—just unruly enough to jolt you out of whatever stupor the industry has you in. She’s fabulous in the old sense: not of the moment but of her own making.

Ahead of her debut EP 001, out April 17 under mra, Weinstein shares a playlist for the romantically fried: From the aching drift of Joanne Robertson’s “Blue Car” to the brazen strut of BabyxSosa’s “Chanel.” Wired headphones encouraged.

Where are you when you’re listening to this playlist?

Crying on the plane.

What was the first album you bought with your own money?

My babysitter taught me how to use LimeWire, and the rest was history. Before that, I shared an iPod with my brother, and I remember we had Led Zeppelin IV and Britney Spears’ Blackout on there.

What’s been inspiring you recently?

No taste is what I’m against… I adore what Diana Vreeland said about needing a splash of bad taste for our health. Oh and late night phone calls with my friend Donna Trope. The world will never know what we say, salacious and strictly off the record, but she’s my favorite midnight gab sesh. We only watch Pre-Code Hollywood films or trashy T.V. together. Tacky highbrow forever.

What song do you always put people onto?

I don’t naturally push my music agenda, which makes this interview ironic, but I have definitely gone on Sibylle Baier tangents before.

One new artist you can’t stop listening to?

Is Joanne Robertson considered new? If so, that’s my answer. Listen to “Blue Car,” it reminds me of a voice memo recorded in the bathroom—very nascent, like hearing the song being written. Or Astrid Sonne. Sorry, that’s two.

What do you think about world-building across both your production work and music? What’s the overall vibe of the E.P.?

Both are just so intimate. There aren’t really many projects you see my name on that I’ve walked away from without connecting significantly with the person I made it with. Music or fashion, I don’t care. I’m not saying every session or shoot was a hit. Sometimes the bad ones are even more bonding. 001 is a visceral imprint of who I was in that moment. It came from a version of me I don’t have access to now. I was ingesting everything, a student of it all.

Weirdly, some of those beats feel way more current now. I would black out in the writing room with MNDR. She knows all my secrets, and saw me mid-molt. It was precarious, but we trusted each other. Bryce Anderson and I made a video for the track “Avoid.” I’d like to think it captures it well, if you need a visual. Obsession, exhaustion, and glamour, grasping onto something with white knuckles as it slips. I’d rather the listener take what they want from it.

Why does now feel like the right time to begin sharing music as an artist more publicly?

Truthfully, I wrote the E.P. mainly in 2022, and I was in a very particular headspace. I had a kind of naive hubris. I felt hard done by but also wildly confident at the same time. I don’t share too much online. I only recently started posting my face. I’ve done music under an alias on bigger projects. I liked keeping it that way at the time. So to answer your question, I’m going with how I feel. I’m comfortable in my own skin now for the first time in my life. Right now being more visible feels right. It’s not more complicated than that.

How about as a producer?

My production work took on a life of its own, and I’m glad I let it. Now I can say I do both with my full chest and actually mean it.

What’s your favorite fashion era of music?

I don’t get too stuck or fussy about nostalgia, but I enjoy watching how things repeat. Whether it’s London in the early ’80s with the Blitz and Buffalo era, or the original New York club kids. A lot of what ends up being mainstream starts in subcultures. Now it’s more digital, and the machine regurgitates faster than ever. That’s probably why I’m drawn to things that feel raw and real. I suppose I have a type.

Do you have a favorite movie soundtrack?

Under the Skin by Mica Levi. It sounds like something trying to understand what being human is like. Acerbic, almost painful. Beauty in what isn’t fully formed.

What haircut goes with this playlist?

My hair now works: Blue-black, straightened to a burnt crisp from years of toxic treatments, with surgically straight-cut bangs over my eyes. Vision impaired. But you do you.

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