Isabel Rose Parodies Red Carpet Culture In ‘Never Satisfied’

Director Jean-Luc Godard once said, “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take things to.”

That quote hangs on the wall of Isabel Rose’s Manhattan office space. It lingers in her mind as she works at her desk in East Hampton, overlooking one of the three spacious gardens she carefully tends, and loses herself in.

And, in retrospect, they are words she has lived by her entire life, starting as a young girl growing up in the Rose real estate empire—a path she refused to take, proving that it is not where she came from, but whom she has become.

Admittedly, the independent singer, writer, actor and all-around extrovert is still figuring it out, and explores that theme in her most recent music video, “Never Satisfied,” parodying famously outrageous red carpet looks until she, ultimately, bares it all.

“On the one hand, I admire the women who have found strong statements to make. But in trying to copy them, you’re not going to find your answer as a person,” Ms. Rose said last week during a telephone interview. “All those outfits do is make you, as a viewer, confront self-expression. You can’t be neutral with those outfits.”

The fashions in question are Cher’s sheer Bob Mackie number at the 1988 Oscars; the plunging, exotic green Versace dress worn by Jennifer Lopez to the 2000 Grammy Awards; and Bjork’s iconic, wraparound swan dress, designed by Marjan Pejoski, for the 2001 Oscars.

“I liked J. Lo’s, but I remember thinking, along with everyone else, ‘Wow, she's not leaving too much to the imagination. But good for her—girl can carry it off,’” Ms. Rose laughed. “But I definitely remember going through stages of both horror and admiration, just confusion, with the rest. I know people who are much more excited about the red carpet show than watching the award ceremony. It’s such a marketing tool and one that needs to be thought about.”

Initially, this theme was not on her radar when the original song by Bianca Mancinelli fell into her lap. The lyrics described a woman dating a kinky man, and the twist emerged in the bridge: “You may think that it’s strange, or that I’m really bad. But I like it that way!”

That did not resonate with Ms. Rose, or her producer, Bob Rock.

“He just looked at me and said, ‘I really cannot see you in that scenario,’” she recalled. “We cut the bridge and we were left with something that was more of a complaint. So I started thinking about tango music. Once I got in the studio with a bunch of musicians, they brought another spin to it, and the video took it into an even different realm. Making it from totally being about a relationship to culturally meaningful was a really satisfying evolution.”

The video for the single—off her 2013 album, “Trouble in Paradise”—was prepped and shot over the course of 20 hours inside and around a Chelsea art gallery this past winter, with “a lot of smoke and mirrors,” Ms. Rose said, considering that, to this day, she hasn’t yet graced a red carpet.

But the artist doesn’t seem to mind. Ms. Rose said she knew she would be a performer from a young age: She led every Friday night Shabbat dinner in song, with her guitar, from the time she was 8 years old. Afterward, the family would watch movie musicals. “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Kiss Me, Kate” and “The Pajama Game” were her favorites.

“[The real estate business] was never even mentioned. Never,” she said, noting she has visited family on the East End her entire life. “I was so ultra-creative, it never even came up. I was drawing, I was dancing, I was playing the piano. I was singing, I was writing. It just never came up. I’m not very good at math, either.”

When Ms. Rose isn’t singing these days, she’s working on her second novel, titled “A Member of the Tribe.” It’s a thriller, she said, about truth and beauty.

“I would really like to finish it in the Hamptons this summer. It’s a really great place to be creative, looking out over my garden,” she said. “It’s very inspiring.”

Isabel Rose will play a concert on May 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan. Tickets are $20. For more information, visit isabelrose.com.