Lighting a Cigarette in a Velvet Dream: Zena Lynn Edward’s “Vivienne Westwood” Is a Love Letter to Femme Fatales and Fading Glamour
- Sophie Ray
- Jul 25
- 2 min read
There are songs that play in the background of your life, and then there are songs that feel like they’ve been writing you the whole time. Zena Lynn Edward’s "Vivienne Westwood" is firmly the latter — a hypnotic, slow-burning anthem for the girls who leave lipstick stains on wine glasses, underline Sylvia Plath in motel Bibles, and cry on the fire escape just to feel something cinematic.
Out now via Cage Riot, "Vivienne Westwood" is a noir-drenched trip into a world that feels both mythic and intimately real. Zena’s voice doesn’t ask for attention, it commands it, slipping between melody and spoken word like a jazz ghost in the hallway of a crumbling hotel. The production is lo-fi but rich, featuring real sampled motorcycle revs outside Southern dive bars, giving the song this gritty, boots-on-the-ground texture that you can almost smell.
"Vivienne Westwood" feels made for the women who haunt neon-lit parking lots and write poems in the margins of hotel Bibles — the kind of romantic, gritty figures that Zena Lynn Edward brings to life in every verse. It’s Western noir meets Casino Royale, where leather jackets are thrown over silk slips and mascara tears leave trails on sequin pillows.
If Lana Del Rey, Leonard Cohen, and Zella Day were passing around a notebook in a booth at some off-the-map lounge in Nashville, this is what would be playing from the jukebox. But where some artists borrow that vintage aesthetic like a costume, Zena Lynn Edward lives in it. Her lyrics are romantic but sharp, dreamy but grounded, never once trading depth for style.
Zena is one of those rare artists building a world with every line — one where cowgirls wear couture, jukeboxes hum in minor keys, and heartbreak gets its own soundtrack. "Vivienne Westwood" isn’t just a song. It’s a mood. A memory. A message.
Check out this latest release and listen to more of Zena Lynn Edward on Spotify & YouTube.
