How the world embraced Sabrina Carpenter

To really understand why Sabrina Carpenter has become a global sensation, you need to experience one of her concerts. Picture yourself in a packed arena where every seat is taken, and the crowd is chanting along to the knowingly suggestive and grammatically off-kilter lyrics of her nu-disco hit “Espresso”—“Say you can’t sleep, baby I know / that’s that me espresso.” The track has been streamed 1.9 billion times on Spotify and remains popular nearly a year after its release. You also need to see her fans, affectionately called Carpenters, scream with delight when she sings her indie-pop anthem “Juno,” especially when she gets to the playful line: “Wanna try out my fuzzy pink handcuffs?”

You also have to take in the atmosphere, the unspoken dress code that fills the venue. Thousands of Carpenters show up in “Brinacore,” which usually means skimpy dresses, short skirts, cutoff shorts, fishnet tights, and those towering platform boots known as Pleasers. Baby blue and soft pink dominate the color scheme. Sequins, heart motifs, and lipstick marks are popular, and some fans even sport Carpenter’s temporary kiss-mark tattoos, sold at the merch stand, stuck to their arms or thighs. The aesthetic manages to be girlish and bold at once, a cousin of the romantic coquettecore look, but turned up with a more mischievous twist.

Carpenter’s rise did not happen overnight. The former Disney Channel actress, now 25, released five albums between 2015 and 2022. But her sixth record, Short n’ Sweet, which debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 in September and quickly went platinum, hit a different cultural nerve. The project jumps confidently across genres, disco, country, R&B, and folk, anchored by witty lyrics that feel tailor-made for this cultural moment. With this album, Carpenter shed some of her earlier teen-pop image and leaned into a new visual direction. In her music videos and stage shows, she has been channeling overtly feminine characters that carry a nostalgic feel while still polished for the present.

I saw Carpenter live last November at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego, where groups of fans gathered outside taking selfies and planning group shots. Her rep greeted me near a row of tour buses covered in lipstick prints and escorted me to her dressing room so I could meet her before the show.

Pechanga is an older building, a concrete oval built in 1966 and known to locals for decades as the Sports Arena. It was a hub for arena rock in the 1970s, hosting acts like Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Queen, and Kiss. The backstage hallways are plain and utilitarian, more reminiscent of a YMCA locker room than a major concert venue. Carpenter’s dressing room, however, felt cozy and welcoming, with couches, a stocked kitchenette, and a candle burning on the coffee table. She welcomed us at the door before returning to the vanity to finish her makeup.

Carpenter is just five feet tall. Short n’ Sweet is, in part, a nod to her height, and in person, she looks even more doll-like than she does on screen. Her hair had been styled into a wave of voluminous blonde curls so bouncy that some fans suspect she wears wigs onstage. Her cheeks glowed with the now-famous blush that has inspired countless makeup tutorials. Despite the glamorous hair and makeup, she was dressed casually in a Phillies T-shirt and sweatpants.

Keeping her company were her sister and creative partner Sarah, Sarah’s boyfriend George, and her close friend Paloma. Two dogs were curled up nearby: Louie, Carpenter’s Cavapoo, and Goodwin, a Maltese Lhasa apso Chihuahua Yorkie mix she received as a birthday gift at 13. The conversation turned to the fans waiting outside. Carpenter admitted she had only recently realized that her concerts had become full-on dress-up occasions, especially in cities outside New York and Los Angeles. Often, when she passes her fans on the street before a show, she is in sweatpants or gym clothes. “I dress like a little boy for most of the day if I’m trying to hide,” she said with a laugh. “They don’t even know it’s me, and I’ll be standing right behind them.”

The idea of embodying several identities at once runs through Carpenter’s music, and in person, it came across even more strongly. The casual clothes contrasted with her glamorous curls, and her speaking voice, much lower than her singing voice, gave her presence a striking duality. Yet the personality was unmistakably the one that comes through in her songs: direct and funny. “He’s obsessed with humping people’s legs today,” she said, glancing at Louie. (She wasn’t wrong; he did later try my leg.) When someone pointed out the backstage passes clipped to the dogs’ collars, Carpenter quipped, “Stray dogs try to break in here all the time.”