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"           Nordic Tracks: The singer takes a mid-shopping-spree breather at Le Grand Strip near her apartment in Williamsburg. As she sifts through hundreds of vintage pieces, Nanna \u00D8land Fabricius\u2014aka indie chanteuse Oh Land\u2014professes that clothes, for her, are as emotional as they are personal. The declaration may sound a bit airy, but follow the Dane on a shopping expedition in her adopted hometown of Brooklyn, and you&amp;#039;ll soon notice: Each item she purchases\u2014and there aren&amp;#039;t many; she&amp;#039;s extremely choosy\u2014makes an impact. &amp;quot;They need to be my best friend,&amp;quot; she says matter-of-factly, admiring a heavy, oversize salmon tweed coat in the mirror of vintage emporium Le Grand Strip. &amp;quot;Vintage has to make me feel nostalgic. There&amp;#039;s a lost time that still exists in clothing and materials. It kind of makes up for the fact that you&amp;#039;re never able to go back in time.&amp;quot; This is why the 26-year-old sylph is so fond of pink silk, for instance: &amp;quot;It reminds me of the dance that I lost,&amp;quot; she says, referring to her past as a ballerina. &amp;quot;Puts me back in those pink ballet shoes.&amp;quot; Oh Land&amp;#039;s style mantra, as reflected by her current outfit\u2014a one-of-a-kind, hand-painted blouse from Stella Dallas, billowy emerald trousers from Zara, and a neon Cambridge Satchel tote\u2014is to mix old with new, time-honored with contemporary. She&amp;#039;s also adept at envisioning ingeniously outr\u00E9 stage costumes, then enlisting designer friends such as Michael Angel to create them for her. One such get-up is a nude nylon bodysuit by designer Anne Sofie Madsen in which Oh Land resembles a hipster antelope, topped off by a horn headpiece. Another is an eccentric flamingo frock on which two pink heads hug her shoulders, by designer friend Henrik Vibskov. &amp;quot;I only wore it once\u2014I thought it was too Bj\u00F6rkish,&amp;quot; she admits. Not that Bj\u00F6rkishness is a bad thing. Released last year, Oh Land&amp;#039;s U.S. debut, an eponymous album of electronica-inflected pop\u2014which ranges from haunting ballads to percussion-heavy, effervescent dance numbers\u2014reflects her whimsical taste and bears a more than passing resemblance to the work of the Icelandic superstar. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a bit Alice in Wonderland\u2013ish,&amp;quot; she says of her harmony-happy, madrigal-style vocals. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m in my own world when I write and perform, one that is abstract. Oh Land is a land that I can escape to and be creative.&amp;quot; The singer not only pens her own tunes and conceptualizes her costumes but also choreographs her performances for music videos and concerts. Onstage she&amp;#039;s a dazzling, multitasking siren with the bone structure of a model and the tune-belting ability of Feist, bopping a xylophone, banging drums, and dancing in a frenzy, all while managing to sing on key.          Great Dane: The artist at (clockwise from left) Bird; outside her apartment; Spoonbill &amp;amp;amp; Sugartown Booksellers; Catbird. At the Williamsburg location of beloved boutique mini-chain Bird, mildly distracted by a Proenza Schouler bag, Oh Land recalls how she first honed this instinct for performance. At age 10, she entered the prestigious Royal Danish Ballet School, but, sidelined by a slipped disk at 18, she was forced to cut her dance career short. &amp;quot;That was all I knew,&amp;quot; she says. During the dark period that followed, she battled bouts of depression with the therapeutic power of music, eventually realizing that piecing together melodies came as naturally to her as cavorting to them. She was born to it, after all\u2014her father was an organist, her mother an opera singer. With no formal training, in 2008, the then 22-year-old uploaded her original songs onto Myspace and was immediately contacted by a well-known Danish DJ, Kasper Bj\u00F8rke. Together they produced 2009&amp;#039;s Fauna, the album that made her a household name in Denmark, where two of her singles remain in the top 10 today. (Her next album, currently in the works, is influenced by experimental hip-hop, she says, and will feature collaborations with the likes of Incubus&amp;#039; Brandon Boyd.) No tour of Oh Land&amp;#039;s Brooklyn would be complete without a stop at her spacious Williamsburg loft\u2014also home to a well-behaved shih tzu, Ujan (&amp;quot;not John&amp;quot; in English), as well as Oh Land&amp;#039;s boyfriend of four years, the tall, soft-spoken Eske Kath, an abstract painter, who followed his assistant turned girlfriend turned hitmaker from Denmark to New York. With its views of the Manhattan skyline, their home is as creative and insouciant as its owners. Befitting their boho locale, one wall of the loft boasts a Kath-designed architectural wreath composed of alabaster houses illuminated by neon Christmas lights. (Testament to their creative symbiosis, the sculpture was originally made for the cover of Oh Land&amp;#039;s self-titled album.) Much of the rest of the decor consists of items gathered on the singer&amp;#039;s constant travels. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a hoarder!&amp;quot; she jokes. Fifty snow globes collected around the world\u2014those that survived being carted around in her luggage, she says\u2014line a shelf. Her favorite is from San Francisco, featuring a tiny gay couple standing next to a chapel. &amp;quot;A snow globe tells a lot about a place, and they&amp;#039;re each a moment in time,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re like little memory bubbles.&amp;quot; Other prized possessions include an Edward Scissorhands doll, mini vintage Chinese pianos (&amp;quot;I love their sound!&amp;quot;), a beautiful star-shape ceiling lamp purchased at a Danish monastery, and, of course, the treasure trove of clothing she&amp;#039;s carefully curated over the years: custom-made fringe dresses by design duo (and friends) Cushnie et Ochs, a one-of-a-kind white gown by Phillip Lim she wore as the designer&amp;#039;s date to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala last year, and a 200-year-old feathered headpiece from the Amazon jungle. Then there is her extensive shoe collection, with every\u00ADthing from Miu Miu to Anna Sui. These acquisitions may be numerous, but few were made as snap purchases. At Bird, Oh Land demonstrated her careful shopping strategy with a Thakoon blazer, returning to feel its fabric and consider the shape from different angles. &amp;quot;Usually I come back to see a piece four different times to see if I absolutely love it,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It definitely needs to speak to me.&amp;quot;  Photos: Eric Ray Davidson      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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