Fresh off her wildly successful US tour, Marina Daimandis of Marina & the Diamonds worked her colorful socks on the red carpet at the BT Digital Music Awards in London on September 30th, 2010. She is nominated for BREAKTHROUGH ARTISTS OF THE YEAR along with Tinie Tempah, The Temper Trap, Professor Green, deadmau5 and The XX. The votes are being counted now so cross your fingers for our diamond!

via Accidental Sexiness

Marina was tipped as on of Britain’s best dressed celebrities by Glamour.com, ranking #20 among the ladies. Emma Watson and Robert Pattinson topped the list respectively.

No 20: Marina Diamandis

Her Style: The girlfriend of Hurts lead singer Theo is a seasoned professional when it comes to dressing for attention. From Topshop US flag hotpants to cartoon hippo dresses, the Marina & The Diamonds singer raises eyebrows and re-ignites our creative fashion streaks.

All summer NPR has been producing web and radio pieces that draw from a questionnaire sent out to women working as musicians right now. They wanted to hear from them directly about performing, recording, writing, doing press and trying to have a life at the same time.

…But cracking the charts for this generation can mean treading lightly when it comes to expressing feminist sensibilities, just in case it turns off potential listeners.

“I don’t want to cut anybody out,” explains Marina Diamandis, of Marina and the Diamonds. “Like males, for example. And women who aren’t ready to think about those things.”

Still, Diamandis says music led her to her own strongly-felt feminism. Not the top 40 radio she heard growing up in Wales, but the tunes that eventually inspired her to become an artist — by the likes of PJ Harvey and Brody Dalle of The Distillers — part of a long line of powerful women in rock from Wanda Jackson in the 1950s through today.

Anne Powers [chief pop critic of the Los Angeles Times] covered the riot grrrl movement in the 1990s for the New York Times.

“The fantasy was of talking back to the rock tradition,” she says. “Talking back to the patriarchy — screaming back at the patriarchy. But that’s not the fantasy right now.”

Our cultural fantasies and aspirations are reflected in our popular music. So “liberation” right now may have more to do with making money than fomenting a movement. And, Powers adds, female empowerment’s meaning has changed.

“In a lot of ways, pop’s youngest divas are career women,” she says, pointing to Taylor Swift. “She’s all about — ‘I’m a songwriter, I’m successful behind the scenes, I’m not just this pretty image.’ And I think that is, in a strange way, the new version of the liberated feminist: ‘I’ve got my own thing.’”

That’s never been easy for women in mainstream music. Now that the industry’s falling apart, it’s even harder. Which makes the case of Kelly Clarkson especially surprising. She started as a product of the completely fabricated pop machine, American Idol. Still, over the past eight years she’s managed to buck the “male Svengali” formula to achieve massive success on her own terms.

“I am not normal,” Clarkson says. “Usually, people don’t weigh what I weigh. Usually people don’t go against the grain as a far as, ‘No, I don’t want this song from the most popular writer ever’ and it’s not because I don’t like the song. It’s because I would rather work with people that I want to work with.”

Clarkson credits growing up under the weight of small-town scrutiny with helping her deal with mainstream pop expectations. And she’s somewhat unique among her peers in her resistance to hypersexualization.

That’s also one of the biggest differences between female music icons of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and today, says Brooklyn-based rocker Tamar-kali.

“There was a time when we showed a little something to get people in the room, or to get people to listen,” she says wryly. “So it was like, oh look, here’s a little something something and then you were like — here’s what’s really going on. It’s the music. And now, what’s really going on is the selling of sex.”

That’s something Marina Diamandis, of Marina and the Diamonds, thinks about a lot. The 24-year-old says it would be a lie to deny her sexuality. But she also doesn’t want to emulate the majority of other female pop stars out there.

“Whether they know it or not, or do it on purpose or not, they are letting sex override everything else, and I think that’s a real shame,” Diamandis says.

There is a place to find powerful female role models and icons in rock — and that’s at the grass roots level. They’re the hundreds of counselors and coaches at the rock camps for girls that have sprung up all over the country.

“I’m just hoping to still be around to be writing about music when those girls are running the scene,” says critic Ann Powers. “Those girls are coming up with a completely different sense of what they can do than any generation of female rockers before them.” Copyright 2010 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

From Vogue.com:

Marina Diamandis, singer, at LFW

“I’m wearing a $10 vintage dress with a Prada handbag and glasses by Craig Cosgrove. My style icons are Leigh Lezark, Gwen Stefani and Shirley Manson.”

Marina recently posed for a gorgeous new photoshoot! Take a look at the beautiful new photos in the gallery above, and I’ve also updated some older albums with new pictures as well!

• [HQ] Marina at the Diesel U Music Radio Station Launch Party, London
• [HQ] x9 Photos of Marina performing at the Great Escape Brighton
• [HQ] x7 Photos added of Marina performing at The Roundhouse in London
• [HQ] x6 Photos added of Marina performing at Latitude Festival, Southwold

From Official Explore Music: “Alan sits down and talks fashion, music and more with Marina Diamandis from Marina and the Diamonds.”

From 2009 – where she explains her sound, how she got signed, what she has planned for the future and is all around adorable.

Hi everyone! I’m Sam, and I’m going to be helping out on the site updating the gallery! I’ve updated the gallery with some older pictures of Marina and there’s more to come. Take a look and enjoy!

• x26 HQs added of Marina performing Live in London
• x13 Pictures added of Marina performing in Belfast
• x29 HQs added of Marina on the set of Shampain
• x10 HQs added of Marina outside BBC Studios in May
• x9 HQs added of Marina in August In Style

Related Links > 21/09/2010 : Leaving The Longchamp Party, London

Dolce And Gabbana threw a party yesterday at their flagship store on Bond Street in London to celebrate 25 years with Naomi Campbell and it was definitely the place to be. Marina attended wearing a beautiful yellow dress with black polk a dots and her recently favoured black lipstick.

Related Links > 21/09/2010 : Naomi Campbell Celebrates 25 Years With Dolce & Gabbana, London