For years, the relationship between club culture and fashion went one way. Designers borrowed the energy of the dancefloor, booked a DJ to score the runway, and moved on. The person behind the decks stayed behind the decks.
That has changed, and 2026 makes the point clearly. In October, ELLE Belgium put Amelie Lens on its cover, pregnant with her second daughter, under three words: “Mother is a DJ.” A few weeks earlier, Peggy Gou was in Paris, seated among the guests at Schiaparelli’s SS27 show inside the Louvre, before flying to California to play back to back with Four Tet at Goldenvoice’s Head Trip festival.
Two artists, two very different sounds, one shared reality. The women running dance music are now fashion figures in their own right, and the industry is treating them that way.
Peggy Gou: the stylist who became the cover
Peggy Gou never needed an invitation into fashion. She came from it. Before she was one of the most booked DJs in the world, she studied at London College of Fashion and worked as London correspondent for Harper’s Bazaar Korea. In a conversation with The Business of Fashion, she admitted the plan didn’t survive contact with reality: “I realised very quickly I’m not good at styling other people. I didn’t enjoy it. I only really enjoyed styling myself.”
That self styling became a career of its own. In February 2019 she launched her label Kirin with New Guards Group, the company behind Off-White, with support from the late Virgil Abloh. The name is the Korean word for giraffe, her spirit animal, and the collections mixed Korean mythology with club graphics, debuting at Paris Fashion Week. Campaigns with Nike and a long relationship with Louis Vuitton followed.
The magazines caught up. Vogue Germany gave her the cover of its January/February 2024 issue, shot by Misha Taylor and styled by James Valerie. This year she was photographed at Saint Laurent’s Fall 2026 show by Anthony Vaccarello in March, a moment Grazia Malaysia also featured in its round up of the season’s front row looks. In October she was back in Paris for Daniel Roseberry’s SS27 collection for Schiaparelli at the Louvre, seated near Tate McRae, as reported by Dazed.
Then she did what she does best. On October 10 she played a 90 minute back to back with Four Tet at Head Trip, Goldenvoice’s one off festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Paris one week, the Coachella grounds the next.
She has also been clear about how she wants to be described. Asked about being a “female DJ” by Harper’s Bazaar Malaysia, she answered:
“Why don’t you just ask me what it’s like to be a DJ?”
Amelie Lens: “Mother is a DJ”
If Peggy’s story is about style, Amelie’s is about who gets to be seen. ELLE Belgium’s October 2026 issue, on newsstands since October 10, puts the Belgian techno artist on the cover, visibly pregnant with her second daughter, under the line “Mother is a DJ.” The shoot is by photographer duo Lalo + Eva, with styling by @lijadeweerdt and hair and make up by @sanneschoofs, according to the credits shared by the magazine. She shares the issue with interviews with Nicolas Ghesquière and the Antwerp Six, which says a lot about where fashion now places a techno DJ.
Post embedded from Instagram, credit to ELLE Belgium (@elle_belgie). Photography: Lalo + Eva.
The cover lands differently when you remember what she said three years ago. In her June 2023 DJ Mag cover story, she described pregnancy in nightlife as a taboo in an industry still run mostly by men, from agents to promoters, and asked out loud: “How do I have a child as a DJ, and be a mother, in that environment? I don’t know!”
She found out by doing it. When she announced her first pregnancy later that year, people’s first reaction was “but you are a DJ?” Her answer, reported by Mixmag Asia, was simple: yes, and proud of it. Her daughter Kiki was born, the career kept growing, and on June 30, 2026 she announced a second baby girl, due this winter.
This summer she played both weekends of Tomorrowland pregnant, closing the Freedom Stage with a set built around her debut album AURA. She told VRT NWS how her setup has changed: personal monitors instead of the full stage sound, a decibel meter always on hand, softer movement with her feet firmly on the ground, and eight hours of sleep she calls sacred. “My body is my baby’s house, and it always gets priority,” she said. And then the line that explains the ELLE cover better than any caption could:
“Performing while I’m making a little human is the best feeling in the world.”
Why fashion wants the DJ, not just the playlist
None of this came out of nowhere. Fashion has relied on DJs for decades to give a show its mood, but the women doing it were mostly heard and not seen. That started to shift when artists like Honey Dijon, who has scored runway shows for Dior Men and Louis Vuitton, launched her own label with Comme des Garçons in 2019. “As a trans woman of colour I’d never imagined that this would be possible,” she told Crack Magazine at the time.
What Peggy and Amelie show in 2026 is the next step. Brands are not only hiring their sound. They are buying into their image, their audience and their point of view. A DJ brings something a model or an actor rarely can: a community that shows up physically every weekend, in clubs and festivals around the world, and follows what she wears as closely as what she plays.
There is also a quieter shift underneath. A pregnant techno artist on a fashion cover, styled with the same care as any campaign star, tells a new generation that motherhood and a career in the booth are not a contradiction. Fashion is finally reflecting what the dancefloor already knew.
What this means for the UAE
Dubai and Abu Dhabi sit at the crossing point of these two worlds. The region hosts luxury flagships, fashion launches and brand activations almost every week, and its nightlife books the same international names that sit in Paris front rows. The local scene has its own Djanes building strong personal style alongside their sound.
The opportunity is obvious. Brands here still tend to book women DJs as entertainment for an event, and rarely as the face of it. Peggy and Amelie prove the second option works, commercially and culturally. The next step is for regional labels, concept stores and magazines to look at the women already playing in their city and see a creative partner, not just a booking.
A creative partner, not just a booking.
At DJaneMag UAE we will keep telling those stories. So we’re asking you: which Djane in the UAE deserves the next fashion cover? Tell us in the comments on our Instagram.