Since to set the story of the music video for “White Dress” inside of a diner (think Twin Peaks’ Double R) as Lizzy Grant dreamily pours coffee for the one or two “Daddy”-esque customers would be too obvious, Lana Del Rey continues down the path of her home movie spirit. Except this time, the aesthetic is more polished than what we saw in her trifecta of videos (amounting to a short film) for “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” “Bartender” and “Happiness Is A Butterfly.”
In this context, Del Rey keeps us in the desert setting Southern California is so fond of providing (namely, Joshua Tree). Yet there’s also a metaphorical tinge to willfully marooning oneself in this environment. Absent of verdancy, and “dried out,” it’s in keeping with the symbolic nature of Del Rey saying, “Summer, summer’s almost gone” (she’s always got that summertime sadness, after all). And, on another track from Chemtrails Over the Country Club, this loss of youth is further broached with the lyric, “No rose left on the vines.” Del Rey’s fear of being old at thirty-five, apparently, has been in the works for a while, as it’s also a bittersweet acceptance made on Norman Fucking Rockwell with tracks like “Venice Bitch” and “How To Disappear.”
And so, it’s only natural that she should reflect upon that carefree period of juvenility before her fame, when all was sweet even if she thought mediocrity might be worse than never “making it.” Yet skating down the open road (as directed by Constellation Jones, who also worked with LDR on the Lust For Life album trailer), Del Rey seems to wonder if “maybe [she] was better off” as a nobody just waitressing in a restaurant.
Breaking her arm for her art seems to be an answer to that ponderance. And also kind of a slap in the face for a song that ruminates on the passage of time and pining for one’s youth. “When you see my second video for this album, don’t think that the fact I’m wearing a cast is symbolic for anything other than thinking I was still a pro figure skater. I wiped out on my beautiful skates before the video even began after a long day of figure eights and jumps in the twilight of the desert,” Del Rey forewarned. After the four-minute mark, she shows us the aftermath with her arm slung in a cast, defying her original belief that she felt like a god.
Still, one can imagine her doing it all over again even with the knowledge that she was destined to take a fall, assuring, “If I could do it all again, I’d fly/Because it made me feel, made me feel like a god.” In that split second before she was brought down to size, oh how glorious it was to have the untouchable feeling of an immortal.
With the Hicksville Trailer Palace as her Joshua Tree tableau, Del Rey also appears to be pointedly looking back on the period when she did live in a trailer park and she was just a blonde-haired babyface speaking with a Marilyn Monroe cooing voice. We all try on personas that don’t end up sticking, and most girls will tell you that the Lolita shtick can’t last forever (not even when you have the money for fillers). “White Dress” feels like an acknowledgement of that, in addition to the yearning it expresses for simpler, more carefree times. Which also applies in general to the pre-pandemic era that may never be fully regained.
Still, Del Rey finds ways to cherish the loveliness of “spareness.” Taking the most comfort in spending time among friends and relishing the California cuisine staple that is a taco. Despite what she’s said in song form, she has much to live for even now that she’s found her fame.
In the final moments of the video, Del Rey continues to skate with abandon against the backdrop of the mountains and water (at times even skating with her cast on to show she’s still capable of succeeding with a handicap). Within these instants of insouciant bliss, it’s almost easy for her to forget she’s famous.
