Many pop artists wear several hats at once, but it seems like Dua Lipa has not only more than 24 hours in a day, but enough side quests apart from her career as a hitmaker to make even the most productive person feel inadequate. At the 2026 London Literature Festival, Dua hosted a trio of interviews that induced FOMO for her stateside fans and did it all in three equally lust-worthy pairs of shoes.
For her role as guest curator of the British literature festival, Dua hosted a series of conversations with authors Zadie Smith, Mustafa, and Patti Smith, three people she’s openly been lifelong fans of and three writers with influences in unique spheres. For Day 1 with Zadie Smith, Dua chose a crimson Chanel long-sleeved dress and a killer pair of Le Silla knee-high boots with a dizzying lace feature, hitting on the seductive office-lite glamour seen on the Fall/Winter 2026 runways.
Her second outfit, worn to interview Mustafa, was off Prada’s Fall/Winter 2026 runway and featured the one pair of shoes that sent my fashion group chats into a tizzy: the feathered kitten heels with a cutesy lace-up feature as well, paired with runway knee-high socks adorned with flowers. It was just the right punch of quirk to offset her Re-Nylon tank and skirt. For the final conversation with Patti Smith, Dua wore a Schiaparelli Spring/Summer 2027 runway look styled with a strong, sexy heel from the same designer with a crystal embellishment that complimented the cosmic energy of her top perfectly.
t was all killer and no filler for the busiest woman in pop music, who has hosted a book club with her Service95 for several years running now, and has previously popped up at the Booker Prize winners’ announcement in 2022. This all comes off the heels of Dua’s already packed October, where she sat front-row at the Chanel Spring/Summer 2027 show, attended the opening night of Lincoln in the Bardo at the Metropolitan Opera House, and opened a pop-up for her skincare line Dua by AB in New York’s Meatpacking District. While we can’t achieve the same level of multicultural success, we can at least start by picking up on her lace-forward shoe choices and commit ourselves to finishing a new book by the end of the month.
