Karen Elson is an English model and singer-songwriter from Oldham, United Kingdom, born in 1979. Her work sits across garage pop, indie, alternative and folk, and she is also associated with cabaret performance.

Music

Elson makes her solo debut with The Ghost Who Walks, released on Third Man Records and produced by Jack White. Her first music video, for “The Ghost Who Walks (Acoustic)”, appears on her website and on Third Man Records’ Modlife site. She also contributes vocals to Robert Plant’s “Last Time I Saw Her”, which features guitars by James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, and she takes part in other smaller collaborations with Iha. She performs “I Love You (Me Neither)” with Cat Power on a tribute album to French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.

Performance and cabaret work

Elson is a creative director and performer with The Citizens Band, a politically minded cabaret troupe. She appears with the group at nightlife venues and at Deitch Projects in downtown New York.

Fashion and public profile

As a model, Elson is known for her red hair and eyebrows, the latter having been shaved off after photographer Steven Meisel persuaded her to do so. She walks for designers including Marc Jacobs, Chanel and Roberto Cavalli, and appears in international campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton and Jean Paul Gaultier. In 2005 she wins the British Fashion Award for Best Model.

Personal life

Elson meets Jack White while filming the White Stripes video for “Blue Orchid”, directed by Floria Sigismondi. They marry in Brazil in a canoe on the Amazon River, with the ceremony officiated by a shaman and later blessed by a Catholic priest. The couple have a daughter, Scarlett Teresa, born in Tennessee in 2006, and they announce their divorce in 2011.

Other notes

In 2002, Elson says she has been battling bulimia nervosa for four years.