Nikki Pennie
The L.A. musician and DJ shows us around her music studio and childhood home in England.
By Lindzi Scharf
Photography by Ian Gavan
Nikki Pennie is well versed in the art of the pivot. The British transplant first made a name for herself as a publicist for the Brazilian fashion label Issa. Thanks to her work with Kate Middleton, among others, Pennie then became a stylist and fashion commentator. However, things really started rolling once Pennie branded herself “the she-J.”
She quickly became one of L.A.’s go-to DJs for the likes of Dior, H&M, and Veuve Clicquot, which flew her around the world to spin at their parties. Pennie has since shifted focus to creating music of her own, a move that greatly benefited her once events were postponed and the world went into lockdown.
MAKING MUSIC
When the pandemic first hit, Pennie made the tough decision to leave behind her Beachwood Canyon cottage in order to quarantine in her childhood home in Henley, England. While Pennie has been making music for some time now, she used quarantine to further perfect her craft and put the finishing touches on a forthcoming EP.
“I’ve always questioned what’s next,” Pennie says over Zoom, seated inside her home music studio in England, “which is why three years ago I started producing music, my next evolution.”
Pennie previously released the songs “Cinq,” “Last Night a SheJ Saved My Life,” “Summer in February,” and “Love Vibration,” the latter of which was picked up as one of Spotify’s Best New Dance & Electronic Songs and prompted the BBC to name her a “Producer to Watch.”
“During this time, I’ve been able to focus on music and learning the electric guitar,” Pennie says. “My whole career, it’s just been going, going, going. It’s been fast-paced and so for me to have this time where I can be in one place for a long time has been nice.” She says her career has “almost worked backwards.”
“People study music and then they go and do something,” she says, explaining that she “just kind of went in at the deep end and didn’t have a full understanding of music theory. Proper musicians have that background. I’ve been working on all of that, so I can evolve and get to a place where [producing music is a priority].”
She adds, “Two percent of producers are female. There’s such a big market right now for [female] DJ producing. … I have not had the opportunity to explore [it] because I’ve been so fortunate to be working all the time and traveling and going from plane to DJ party to plane to go to the next place and the next place. So this time has been amazing for me in that respect.”
THE ART OF THE PIVOT
Pennie has worn a number of (designer) hats over the years. After studying business at the London College of Fashion, Pennie worked in PR for British designer Luella Bartley, followed by a gig organizing events in London for French luxury label Celine. The head of Celine then connected Pennie with Daniella Helayel, the founder of Brazilian label Issa, who’d been looking for assistance. Pennie fell in love with Helayel’s dresses and started working for her. “At first it was for a dress,” she says of the barter arrangement. “I was calling shops all over England and saying, ‘You must come and see the dresses,’ and people were coming. Then she said, ‘Well, I can start to pay you something.’ It was just me, her, and one or two other people.”
Pennie, who was in her early twenties at the time, would wear the dresses around town, and when people would compliment her, she’d invite them to the brand’s London showroom. “All these ‘It’ girls would come to London and I would dress them in the Issa dresses,” Pennie says. “It became a cult label.”
Kate Middleton and her sister, Pippa, were among those who helped put Issa on the map — and Pennie was a part of the action. Things were growing so quickly that Helayel began sending Pennie to New York and Los Angeles, where she connected with stylists, agents, and personal publicists in order to introduce stateside tastemakers to the label. “I thrived on it,” Pennie says, explaining that she fell in love with Los Angeles during that time. “I love London, but L.A. was open-minded. You could make things happen and anything could happen — literally. That’s what I love.”
Pennie found she was spending so much time in Los Angeles that she decided to move to town in 2009. “I’d done so much for Issa, but it wasn’t my company, so at a certain point, after being there for a couple of years, I thought, ‘How am I going to pivot from this?’”
And so she did.
THE POST-ISSA ERA
Because Pennie had built close relationships within the fashion world, styling opportunities soon presented themselves, and she began dressing people for the red carpet. This coincided with a big moment in Middleton’s life. “Kate got engaged, and she wore an Issa dress,” Pennie says. “A lot of people on the inside knew that that relationship was nurtured by me, so then I started getting asked to do a lot of things on British style.” She contributed to CNN and became a David’s Bridal spokesperson.
While things had been going swimmingly, eight years ago, Pennie had a change of heart. “I thought, ‘It’s time to go back to London, because I’m not loving being in fashion.’ I’d been dipping into so many different things. I was consulting for some different brands in L.A. and British brands. I just thought, ‘I’m not loving it.’”
THE BUSINESS-SAVVY BRITISH BARDOT
While soul searching, Pennie was randomly asked to DJ a party for a fashion brand in Los Angeles. She remembers thinking, “Why me? I can’t DJ.’”
She explains, “There were girls in London and New York doing it, but there was no one in L.A. at the time, so I thought, ‘Well, this could be a fun thing for you to do. You can just bring an iPod and plug it in and pretend to DJ or whatever.’ But then I thought, ‘No. If I’m going to do this, I have to do it properly.’ I knew some of the British boys that worked in that industry and they were in Los Angeles because a lot of the big male British DJs were in L.A. They said, ‘There’s a guy coming from England. His name is Dave Garnish and he’s coming to train Paris Hilton. Maybe you should go meet him and see if he can help you.’”
Pennie connected with Garnish and committed to DJing the event. “It went well,” she says. “I started getting asked to do a few more events. In the beginning, my mixing wasn’t great, but I knew how to set the tone. I knew what songs to play, and I knew how to read a room, which is a skill that I was lucky to have. All the money I had in the bank, I had spent on equipment. I’d been training and practicing everyday. It could have gone really wrong, but it took off pretty much straightaway. I’ve always been very entrepreneurial and always thinking outside the box, so I think that’s why I thrived in L.A. It’s the best playground for that.”
TOP OF HER GAME: THE SHE-J
Within six months, Pennie was in Forbes as one of the top female DJs flying around the world to events like the Cannes Film Festival, she says, “doing parties with thousands of people and getting hired by everyone.”
She initially operated under the name “The British Bardot,” but quickly realized she couldn’t trademark it because of Brigitte Bardot. “Then I came up with ‘The She-J’ and that was one thing that helped propel it,” she says, “[being] a female DJ.” Despite being business- and people-savvy, Pennie insists, “I was just really lucky. It was timing and luck.”
Maybe so, but no question, Pennie’s intimate understanding of marketing and PR served her well as she developed her personal brand. “DJs were just coming to the forefront of everything,” she explains. “Especially at these glamorous parties, it really was something for a girl to be there in a glamorous dress and that’s when I got to incorporate my love of fashion. I was lucky that then designers wanted to loan me outfits to wear and it definitely became the centerpiece of an event.”
Because of her varied work experience, Pennie understood the tone and image companies wanted to project. “A lot of these brands are specific about their music, and so having come from that background where I would go to a lot of these parties when I was working in fashion [greatly benefited my approach as DJ],” she says. “A lot of the time, DJs play what they want to play. They don’t play for the people. And that was something I realized more and more as my career was progressing; I was definitely able to play for the people. Never for myself.”
Pennie also credits kindness: “People would say, ‘Can we get you a coffee?’ I’m like, ‘I can get my own. Would anyone like one?’ I think people were not used to that with some of these DJs.”
THE PANDEMIC PIVOT
Business had been booming — and then the pandemic hit. While quarantining in Los Angeles, Pennie navigated her next move. “After two months of being in L.A. by myself with my tiny little cottage in Beachwood Canyon, I was like, ‘I need to be [with people],’” she recalls. “A lot of my friends, they’re in relationships, but when you’re single, you want to be around people in this time. At the time, it was really scary for everyone and I thought, ‘Oh my god. What if I can’t see my family again?’ because they were going to close the borders completely and then the flights were stopping at that time. I’m the eternal optimist. I was like, ‘It’s going to be fine,’ and my parents said, ‘Nikki, you need to get back just in case because we don’t know what’s going to happen.’ So I managed to get one of the last flights and it was actually really weird because I was the only one practically at LAX at that point. I’ve never seen anything like it. There were 10 people on my whole flight. Then they said, ‘You can’t come back in.’”
Pennie has been living in her family home in Henley since the end of April 2020, although she has plans to return to Los Angeles this summer.
LOCKDOWN LIFE
“There are a lot of British people in entertainment that are in my situation,” Pennie says. “I’ve been paying taxes in America for twelve years and all of my business is there, my home is there, all my stuff is there. The 01 Visa is for extraordinary ability. It’s what all the athletes have, what the musicians and the actors are on. What happened was that they closed the borders, so you can only go in if you are an American citizen or you have a green card. Now, obviously, it’s getting better and they’re going to open it up this summer, but the thing was — after a point, I didn’t even want to be back in that situation again by myself, you know? It’s been nice to be back here and to hang out with my family. That’s been the silver lining of the whole thing.”
“Since I was eighteen, I’ve lived away from home,” Pennie adds. “In the past twelve years, I haven’t spent much time with my family because I’ve been working and traveling a lot. Being across the Atlantic, it’s hard. It has been nice to get that time with my parents. There’s something special about coming back to a place that you’re from.” Like most people in her situation, Pennie maintained friendships virtually. “I’ve always been a big fan of phone calls and voice messages and voice memos,” she says, “but it is really a treat [to Zoom] because you can kind of feel half-normal again.”
NEW MUSIC
Pennie also used this time to finish new music, which will be released in September. She shares, “With these songs, I’m producing them, I’ve songwritten them, I played the electric guitar on them, and I’m also singing on them. I’ve done everything. They’re being produced and mastered by women. No man has touched it, which is quite unusual.”
Of singing professionally for the first time, Pennie says, “Listen, I’m not the best singer, but thanks to effects, anyone can sing nowadays. I’ve worked with singers before, but I have to say, it’s much easier when you can do everything yourself because you’re not waiting around; you’re not trying to explain to someone how you want the message to come across. There’s such a power in being able to just do everything yourself, which is why I think so many of the coolest producers like Grimes and all these women, they’re now singing on their songs because it’s a lot easier — the workflow.”
In a similar spirit, Pennie also completed, she says, “a remix for some very cool girls who are pop stars that’s also coming out this summer.” She and her top-secret collaborators worked together from a distance. “People can do things remotely now, which is clever,” Pennie says, adding that she’s now debating how to take things “to the next level so that, in a couple of years’ time, I don’t physically have to be there to DJ.” She’s still figuring out what that means.
THE EVEN NEWER NORM
Pennie is already committed to a number of July events back in L.A. “I miss dressing up,” she says. “I miss a crowded dance floor. I watch movies and think, ‘Wow. They’re standing really close together.’ It’s a weird time, but I feel fortunate for many things. I feel so lucky that I got to have this time with my family because I know a lot of people, quite a few friends in L.A., who’ve just been by themselves. That’s really hard.”
Pennie is focused on the silver lining. “My job hasn’t gone [away],” she says. “It’s just been on pause. It’s going to take awhile to kick in again — for things to properly go back — and it’s not going to happen overnight, but I feel lucky that I’ve been doing it for quite awhile. I have my clients. I have a nice reputation and so I have that to go back to. I think we all have to be optimistic. You’ve just got to follow the path, like I’ve always done, and see where it takes you.”
HOW SHE LIVES…
Pennie takes us through her childhood home in Henley, where she’s been quarantined for the last year.
“This is where I’m from,” she says. “I’ll show you around the house a bit. There are so many things in this house that are so special.”
She was born in Cambridge and moved to Henley at four years old.
“We’ve been in this house for twenty-five years,” she says of the “quintessential English cottage” Tudor house. “This is one of the most beautiful parts of England, and it’s really a special place. Everyone in this area is so nice. You see people on your walks and they’re like, ‘How are you?’ It’s a weird thing — especially after being in L.A. for so long. I know nice people in Los Angeles, but it’s quite a fake place. [It’s great] to be around people that don’t care what you do for a living. They’re just like, ‘Are you a kind person?’ And the things that really [matter]. It’s been a humbling situation.”
THE GARDEN
“I need to show you the garden,” she says. “The garden is really nice, but it’s been so cold here that it was snowing yesterday. It’s so beautiful here. And look, you can see — this is the church behind us — with the English flag. It’s very English.”
HER MUSIC STUDIO
“This studio is on the top floor,” she says. “I call it the Cozy Studio and I come up here literally every day — working on something. Thankfully, I’ve had all of this music stuff to keep me occupied.”
DJ DECK
“I brought these DJ decks,” she says, sharing that she gets all of her DJ and producing equipment from Native Instruments. “This is what I produce music on. This is the future of DJing and producing. I work on this and then I have my keyboard as well. It all came in my suitcase. This is what all the big producers are now working on. I brought all this in my suitcase wrapped up with some clothes.”
DJING IN A PANDEMIC
“I’ve been working on my DJing,” she says, explaining she’s used this time to learn more advanced tricks in order to “better myself and better my craft.”
HER NEW FENDER GUITAR
“The guitar was one of the highlights [of this time],” Pennie says. “Before I had this guitar, when I came here, my dad had a Les Paul, which is one of the heaviest electric guitars. When I started to learn last April, I was learning on that and my hands are so small, I couldn’t even hold the guitar. I got in contact with Fender and was like, ‘Listen, I’m learning on my dad’s guitar,’ and they were so kind. They were like, ‘Listen, we’re going to send you something.’ So all the way from America, they sent me this guitar and it’s a special guitar for women. They’re slightly smaller, so people with smaller hands [can play]. That has definitely been a highlight for me.”
SONG LYRICS
“This time has been good because I’ve been able to reflect a lot about my experiences,” she says. “All of this stuff has happened, you just don’t have the time to sit and think about it and this has really given me time to think, ‘Wow. I can’t believe I did all of that, you know?’”
TWO SISTERS AND A MICROPHONE
“This is my sister and I by my microphone when we were younger,” she says. “There are a lot of things that are very personal to me in this house.”
AIRPODS
“One thing I miss when I’m working and DJing is I love that I’m in my own world with my headphones,” she says. “Having my AirPods and being able to listen to my music and being in my own world has been important.” She misses her custom Dolce & Gabbana headphones, which she left back in Los Angeles. “I don’t know if you’ve seen on my Instagram,” she says, “but I have these amazing one-of-a-kind, beautiful headphones from them with all these crystals. I miss things like that. I dream of that. I just dream of being on crowded dance floors wearing those headphones. There are so many things that can transport you.”
DAILY GRIND
“I start off the day by doing my Body by Simone app, which has been a saving grace to do thirty minutes of exercise,” Pennie says. “I try and do as much work all day and then I’ll go for a walk because it’s in the English countryside. Sometimes I’ll play tennis. We’ve been in a really strict lockdown here. So only since last week, you can go and play tennis because before everything was closed. Everything’s been closed for the past four months. Then I’ll have dinner with my parents and I have some time in the evening to watch Netflix.”
GRATITUDE JOURNAL
“I have this gratitude journal that I’ve been writing in every day, every night,” she says. “I also have a diary with my songs written in. I’ve been journaling a lot. I have a lot of notebooks.”
READING CORNER
“I love reading in this corner,” she says.
PERFUME
“This Dior perfume is another thing I put in my suitcase,” she says. “I’ve been wearing [it] and it makes me feel like a human being. I have a few things from them, which are actually quite meaningful. There’s one beautiful jacket/dress that I have from them, which was one of the first things they gave me. I don’t know why I packed it in the middle of a pandemic. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
HAND CREAM
Pennie says, “I have this hand cream that one of my best friends in L.A. gave to me when she was dropping off toilet roll outside my tiny cottage in Beachwood before I came back here. She’d got some extra toilet roll because that was the time when you couldn’t even buy toilet roll and she dropped it with this hand cream. The hand cream is sentimental because I think of her every time I put it on and it was so thoughtful of her. So I brought that with me.”
LIPSTICK
“Even my Dior lipstick — the red lipstick that I wear all the time — has been my saving grace for Zooms,” she says. “You just put on some red lipstick [and you feel better]. Every day my mom gets up and she puts her face on and she puts an outfit on. She’s such a positive person, so to be around that is really nice because I think she’s right — you should always dress for yourself and feel good. Those kinds of things are so important for mental health.”
NUFACE
“I’m not a tomboy per se; I like beauty and I like clothes,” she says, “but I’ve been looking into how I can improve my skincare regime. I’ve been doing NuFACE. I didn’t know about it until two months ago. I saw it online and I thought, ‘What is this thing that people are doing?’ It pumps electrical currents into your face and that stimulates your muscles — like exercise does. It gives you a face-lift. Miranda Kerr did it on her wedding day and all these people swear by NuFACE. It’s an alternative to injections. I haven’t had injections yet, but it’s a more natural way of looking after your face.”
PANDEMIC STYLE
“Listen, I’ve been trying to be better about [getting dressed],” she says in a look from Dior’s Chez Moi collection. “For a long time, I just wanted to be comfortable. But then after awhile you find, ‘I can’t look in the mirror one more time without being in makeup.’ Even for me to wear makeup is a good start. Because there were months where I didn’t wear makeup. I was in tracksuit bottoms, but now I’m definitely feeling like — the weather is getting better and I want to look nice.”
RINGS
“All my antique rings are precious to me,” she says. “Two of them are from my grandma. I love rings and jewelry from my friends.”
DIOR
“I’ve been working really closely with Dior for five years now,” Pennie explains. “That’s been an amazing relationship — DJing for them and doing different things for them. I’ve been a friend of the house for awhile and wear it whenever I’m DJing. They’ve been wonderful to work with and that’s helped to incorporate my fashion side still.”
HER SUITCASE
Pennie packed just one suitcase to return to her hometown. “I’m not joking, half of the stuff I packed [was unnecessary],” she says with a laugh. “I had no rhyme or reason — like, why was I packing this Dior dress? It was sentimental. But now when I look back, I’m like, ‘If I’d known I was going to be here for this long, why didn’t I pack this, why didn’t I pack that? When would I have needed that bag? For the village store?’ I was just packing. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
