Had Lizzie Siddal, muse of the Pre-Raphaelites, lived not among the poets and artists of Victorian London but among the pop stars of today, she would have been a lot like Florence Welch. They share a pale, flame-haired beauty that, as William Michael Rosetti said of Siddal, his sister-in-law, “exceeded modest self-respect and partook of disdainful reserve”.
Siddal died, aged 32, after a reckless night with laudanum. Welch broke her foot, aged 28, after leaping off stage at this year’s Coachella festival. There’s an air of tragic romance to both, as if they’re just waiting for the ivy in their gardens to crawl up around their slender necks and strangle them.
This romantic sensibility makes Welch one of Britain’s most arresting pop stars. While most