Those of you who’ve been following me for a while already know the menu for my funeral dinner by heart. But at the “Naz’s Departure Ceremony,” there’s something even more important than the food — and far harder to sort out, because I’m impossibly picky about it: the live music.
Here’s the thing about me and concerts: I’m not a concert person. Even when my absolute favorite artist comes to town, I leave the house grumbling. I go maybe once or twice a year, and when I do, I prefer going alone.
The reason is simple — music is contextual. When I’m in a life transition, I reach for one specific artist. When I’m calmer, another. When I’m in full chaos mode, a completely different one, and even then, only their specific three-to-five songs that hit right.
And let’s say one of my favorite artists is going to be in my city, so I bought tickets six months ago for that, and when the concert time comes, should I just hope that the concert lines up with the right emotional wavelength? Did I sleep well the night before? Did I want to strangle my manager that day? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do I want to murder my husband? These are critical variables, people. How am I supposed to just show up and expect the concert to click with my mood?
The whole concept of concerts seems absurd to me to be frank, that's why I just don’t love concerts. I’d rather have a great sound system at home and a solid listening bar nearby — somewhere I can walk into spontaneously and choose what I’m exposed to based on how I feel that very evening.
But every rule has its exceptions. And the exception to my performance pickiness has a name: Antony and the Johnsons.
People who know me know I’m not an emotional person. The mundane ups and downs of daily life don’t really get to me — they bore me, honestly. But nature? Nature makes me cry. During last year’s total solar eclipse, when the forest that had been blazing bright just minutes earlier went pitch black for 62 seconds, I quietly wept.
That same feeling — realizing you’re crying only when you feel a tear fall from your face to your chest — happened a second time last year. Because Antony and the Johnsons finally came to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In typical Antony fashion, she came out late. (In Europe, she’s known to run at least ninety minutes behind, though thankfully she’s not quite that dramatic in America.) After forty painfully patient minutes, the backstage door slowly cracked open.
I’d been staring at the microphone stand, thinking it was set way too high, clearly a mistake — until barefoot, impossibly tall Antony took the stage. The mic was calibrated to the centimeter. I’m always shocked by how tall she is.
Most artists perform behind an emotional mask, but Antony has exactly zero mask. The first two or three songs, she was visibly tense — scanning the audience with these deeply interrogating eyes, trying to read the room. When the applause came, she barely acknowledged it, almost waiting for it to stop so she could move on.
But then, four or five songs in, once she saw how much genuine admiration was coming from this particular crowd, she began accepting the applause a little longer, nodding gently. In Antony’s language, that’s the white flag — it means she’s starting to relax.
After that, once her trust in the audience was built, she started chatting, riffing, playing with her setlist based on her mood. And just like that, the most beautiful, most singular concert of my life had begun.
Who Is Antony Hegarty?
Born exactly 54 years ago in Chichester, at the southernmost tip of Protestant England — a city that clings fiercely to its Catholicism — into an extremely conservative family. Being born in that body, with that soul, to that family feels like something the gods engineered deliberately: compress her enough, wind the catapult tight enough, so she’d launch herself as far and as fearlessly as possible.
As the trans child of a deeply Catholic English household, she couldn’t fit into that box for long. Songs like “You’re My Sister” and “Hope There’s Someone” tell you everything about those early years — a difficult childhood. Moving to California for graphic design school brought some relief, and once she graduated, it was straight to New York.
New York is where she truly found herself. Singing in cabarets, she crossed paths with Lou Reed, and together they co-founded a wildly experimental theater group in 1995 called The Johnsons — named after the famous New York trans and human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson. The group eventually became Antony and the Johnsons, and after that, there was no stopping them.
Her connection to film isn’t limited to soundtracks either. In Steve Buscemi’s Animal Factory, she played Tony Johnson — a gay singer performing a ballad in a prison cafeteria — and absolutely nailed every one of us to our seats. And then there’s the extraordinary duet “Beautiful Boyz” with CocoRosie.
She’s the English Zeki Müren — an incredible vocal range. When she curated the 2012 Meltdown Festival, her lineup included Selda Bağcan, whom she calls Turkey’s Édith Piaf. She’s also a massive Bülent Ersoy fan.
With her stunning piece “Manta Ray,” she became the first trans artist nominated for an Oscar in 30 years — but she boycotted the ceremony and everything it represents.
At the Chicago concert, comparing fascism to democracy, she offered this gorgeous analogy: “Drawing a circle is harder than drawing a square. That’s why the system wants you to be a square. If you’re a circle, it’ll do everything it can to square you.”
If I had to describe Antony to someone, I’d say: effortlessly perfect.
Two and a half hours. No breaks. Zero backup vocalists. The Johnsons were two violins, one cello, one clarinet, one piano, and three electric guitars. They sat in a half-moon, all in white, with Antony at the center, delivering this once-in-a-lifetime performance.
I started this letter calling her Antony, for chronological clarity. But by the time of the concert, she was no longer Antony. In 2016, she transitioned and took the name Anohni. The band became Anohni and the Johnsons.
Anohni’s Voice
Anohni’s voice is fragile — but not like a daisy. Fragile like a century-old bomb buried underground.
If you listen at the right time, it can go very wrong.
That’s why I waited years to dedicate a model to her. It needed to reference that dangerous softness. It had to be profoundly deep, utterly singular, and — for lack of a better phrase — pure soft power. So I paired one of our most fierce, most fearless, most unapologetically-HoS designs — the Tribe model — with one of my favorite minerals, the relatively gentle malachite.
Malachite: A History Lesson
Malachite has been with us since practically the dawn of civilization. Its copper content means it shows up wherever copper deposits are dense. On the Mohs hardness scale, it sits at 3.5–4. For reference: quartz is 7, topaz 8, sapphire 9, diamond 10. That’s why only a diamond can cut a diamond — everything else is too soft.
In ancient Egypt, they crushed malachite (just like lapis lazuli) to make eye shadow for pharaohs. So next time you’re looking at a papyrus and wondering “what eyeshadow number is that goddess wearing?” — blues are lapis lazuli, greens are malachite.
The ancient Greeks and Romans turned it into a favorite amulet and talisman stone, especially among the aristocracy. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Italian artists used it lavishly. But nobody put on a show like the Russians, mining it in bulk from the Ural Mountains. The Malachite Room in St. Petersburg’s Winter Palace is legendary. (That’s a newsletter for another day.)
For our Anohni model, we had exactly 1,000 carats of malachite cut two different ways: spike cuts in three sizes (small, medium, large) and slab cuts that showcase the copper wave patterns inside each stone. Weeks of incredibly delicate work at our atelier in India. Then each malachite was individually hand-coated in silver and layered with black rhodium to bring out the stone’s dark swirls, with black pearls scattered between them for an added layer of regality. Because every stone’s pattern and cut is naturally unique, each necklace is truly one of a kind — just like Anohni.
This model marks two firsts for House of Sól: it’s the first time we’ve named a design after someone who’s still alive, and the first time we’ve dedicated a design to a trans woman. I’m beyond excited about both, and deeply honored that the inaugural name for both milestones is someone as consequential to my own story as Anohni.
We’ve also put together a new HoS Spotify playlist in her honor. Just like our Nina list, I’d love to enrich it with your suggestions — please send us the songs you think belong.
Since each Anohni piece is made to order, production takes three weeks. If you’d like it longer or shorter than what’s listed on the site, just write to us — our artisans will customize it so it sits on your neck like a collar.
Because malachite is a soft mineral, this model ships in a custom-made, maximum-protection case. Wearing 1,000 carats of malachite isn’t for the faint of heart — if anyone can pull it off, it’s a HoS woman.
The first design of the new year is now yours.
With love
Naz
