Meet the Woman Behind Laufey’s Romantic Style: Her Twin Sister, Junia

“Are you Laufey?”

A fan approached the desk at a restaurant within the East Village, hoping for an image with Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay), the musician beloved amongst Gen Z listeners for her nostalgic mixture of pop and jazz.

The girl eating there had the singer’s center half, her mannerisms and her retro-femme type of costume. She was not Laufey, however her equivalent twin, Junia.

The fan recovered rapidly: “Do you steal all of her footwear?”

This resemblance turns out to be useful, Junia (pronounced YOO-nia) defined final month over eggs and kimchi on a thick slice of sourdough. She will check digicam angles whereas her sister is hydrating earlier than a efficiency, or sub in for fittings on a second’s discover. They usually do swipe one another’s footwear.

“She simply received new Chanel ballet flats — in fact I used to be going to steal them,” Junia advised the fan.

However Junia, 25, whose full identify is Junia Lin Jonsdottir, is greater than her well-known sister’s physique double. She works as Laufey’s inventive director, shaping the romantic visible type the singer’s followers name “Laufeycore.” She has nearly two million TikTok followers of her personal who eat her vogue suggestions and her occasional excursions of Iceland, the place the sisters grew up.

She can also be a teenager making an attempt to cement her personal inventive identification whereas her twin is within the midst of an expert breakthrough. To date this yr, Laufey has received her first Grammy, attended her first Met Gala and offered out Radio Metropolis twice.

Twins typically get questions on envy and comparability, however even by these requirements, Junia has been fielding a variety of them currently. “I don’t really feel jealous anymore,” she mentioned. “I feel I did final yr, once I had simply graduated faculty, and I felt extra misplaced. Like, I used to be job hopping, and he or she was constructing her profession. However a lot has modified in only one yr that I now not have these emotions.”

Junia, who lives in London, joined her sister’s workforce full time in January and works to construct the aesthetic aspect of Laufey’s musical empire. She plans album covers, music movies and efficiency seems to be, typically over video calls with Laufey, who lives in Los Angeles, and the remainder of her workforce.

It reminds Junia of the way in which the 2 improvised as youngsters. “Like, we performed dolls collectively, and typically it seems like we’re nonetheless doing that,” she mentioned.

Ballet Flats in Iceland

The sisters grew up in each Washington, D.C., and Iceland, their father’s house nation, in a family made musical by their mom, a classical violinist who’s Chinese language. Junia mentioned she had all the time felt international in Reykjavik, typically insisting on strolling to highschool in skirts and ballet flats despite the fact that everybody else was sporting rain boots.

At 7, Junia determined she needed to select up the violin due to a picture on the duvet of a workbook their mom introduced house. “There was a lady holding a violin, sporting white frilly socks and just a little white costume with a crimson ribbon,” Junia mentioned. “I used to be like, I wish to be her, as a result of I favored her outfit.”

She and Laufey attended the identical faculties, performed in the identical orchestras, and ultimately utilized to all the similar schools aside from the Berklee School of Music in Boston, the place Laufey was accepted and studied music enterprise. Junia departed for St. Andrews, in Scotland. Their time aside was “like a progress spurt for the character,” mentioned Junia, who found a “spicy” humorousness whereas learning worldwide relations.

Junia studied music as a minor however didn’t intention to develop into an expert musician herself. “I needed to be a put-together, good child who received good grades and went to legislation faculty or labored in finance or one thing,” she mentioned. She liked music however didn’t precisely see her place in it. “I simply knew that it was one thing that I used to be going to surrender.”

After graduating in 2022, Junia spent 4 uninspiring days working for a monetary expertise firm. Then she interned on the inventive workforce for model partnerships at Common Music Group, considering that she may pursue a profession on the enterprise aspect of the music trade.

Laufey had remained centered on music, together with a 2021 EP, “Typical of Me,” that she had launched whereas in faculty. (Junia took the Polaroid that’s on the album cowl.) In the summertime of 2023, Laufey’s profession exploded, by the use of a bossa nova-inflected tune that went from TikTok virality to late-night TV.

Junia conceptualized a music video for that tune, “From the Begin,” that was impressed partially by the Nordic designers Arne Jacobsen and Eero Saarinen. The video now has greater than 28 million views on YouTube. Quickly she was taking over extra work, like conceiving merchandise and poring over previous posters from the Montreux Jazz Pageant to encourage artwork for Laufey’s upcoming tour.

Junia was taking weeks off from her internship to help her sister’s breakthrough, however it was turning into untenable. Every sibling needed to work full time with the individual whom she felt understood her imaginative and prescient on a mobile degree. She left her internship at Common final September.

“I feel she actually needed to show herself on her personal earlier than turning into, like, ‘the sister,’” Laufey mentioned in a cellphone interview. Followers shouldn’t underestimate how a lot of the public-facing Laufey was influenced by Junia, she added. “Each single visible factor that you simply see is hers,” Laufey mentioned. “Each photograph shoot. Each outfit, she works with the stylist. Each music video. Each cowl.”

Laufey mentioned she was unlikely to purchase any article of clothes with out working it by her sister. “She’s my type icon,” she mentioned.

‘It’s the Clone’

On the sweaty afternoon once we met for lunch final month, Junia was visiting New York to assist together with her sister’s efficiency on “The Kelly Clarkson Present.” She had been working with a set designer to ascertain an egg-shaped chair acceptable for the bitter fringe of Laufey’s tune “Bored”: “Possibly you’re simply approach too useless to be fascinating/Child, maintain talkin’ however no one’s listening.”

Junia wore a high-neck, pleated shirt and Mary Janes to the interview, with a pair of Miu Miu sun shades with honey-colored lenses. The sisters have zeroed in on a method that leans French and female, a mixture of dreamy nightgowns and A-line clothes. It recollects the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s — periods also present in Laufey’s music — and steers away from something that might learn as Nineteen Thirties jazz-club cosplay. “I’ve a strict no-vests coverage,” Junia mentioned.

The look has been enthusiastically adopted by the followers who stream into Laufey’s concert events dressed kind of just like the woman on the duvet of Junia’s childhood violin workbook. One live performance attendee joked that it was almost inconceivable to satisfy up with buddies at a Laufey present as a result of everybody was sporting comparable bows of their hair.

“She’s actually good at discovering one thing, romanticizing it, and simply understanding it’s going to catch on,” Laufey mentioned.

Junia can think about a future by which she works for a clothes or equipment model, and he or she has been making an attempt to fortify her connections with the style world. She has been making the rounds at a launch occasion for Marc Jacobs and the Vivienne Westwood public sale at Christie’s. She wish to be within the viewers at future vogue weeks.

However she nonetheless plans to work together with her sister for so long as it’s an possibility. She doesn’t fear about collapsing the identities that they labored so onerous to tell apart; moderately, she spends loads of time on-line poking enjoyable at her sister by taking bites out of her post-show quesadillas or making her take out the trash.

These glimpses into the mundane actuality of siblinghood appear to be appreciated by the duo’s followers. In a single TikTok video, Junia ventures out right into a cheering crowd outdoors one in all Laufey’s reveals. “Cease the fanfare!” she says. “It’s the clone!” They cheer anyway.