While 2024 marks the release of Devon Ross’s debut EP, Oxford Gardens, you could argue that the 23-year-old has been preparing for the project her whole life. Music is in the Toronto-born artist’s DNA—her father is Craig Ross, Lenny Kravitz’s lead guitarist. Most of her early memories involve music, either listening to the Beatles-heavy rotation of ’60s and ’70s rock her parents played around the house or tagging along on her father’s tours. The latter experience gave Ross a holistic perspective on the music industry—understanding the work behind all the glamor.

“I’m just really lucky to have grown up around that kind of stuff,” she shares. “Obviously, I’m still learning all the time, but there are a lot of things that I just know from growing up around [musicians]. It’s a space that I’m already comfortable in.”

But despite her native ease with the craft, Ross didn’t originally imagine a career in music. After her parents separated, she alternated living with both parents and grew up between Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York. Taking up the guitar was a way to cope with being a perpetual new kid, but she didn’t see herself taking to the stage like her rocker father. She left school in the 11th grade, determined to follow in the footsteps of her model mother, Anna Bauer. Many agencies rejected her for being too short at 5’7″, but Ross refused to give up until she got signed. 2019 brought her big break when Alessandro Michele tapped her for Gucci’s SS20 runway show in Rome. Her signature black wolf-cut and punk-pixie beauty captured the attention of fashion’s big names, and Ross quickly landed shows and campaigns for Valentino, Simone Rocha, Vivienne Westwood, and more.

Soon, the restless creative craved a new challenge. She found it in acting. After submitting an audition tape, Ross landed a role as the cinema-obsessed assistant to Alicia Vikander’s Mira Harberg in the artsy HBO meta-series Irma Vep. The show’s glitzy premiere at Cannes in 2022 propelled Ross into the spotlight. Yet, as the buzz around the young talent reached a fever pitch, she realized she needed a way to step outside the noise. She turned to her earliest creative outlet: music.

“In May [2023], I went through a really big change in my life. I went to Paris to be with my family, and I just started writing songs the minute I got there, in my bedroom closet,” she recalls.

The result: 4-track EP Oxford Gardens, a hazy alt-rock record bolstered by Ross’s candid lyricism and hypnotic guitar riffs. Her airy vocals weave tales of bitterness and gloom, tempered by calls to move on—to “dye your hair/ get off the floor,” as she croons on lead single “Killer.” Mastered at London’s Abbey Road Studios, the project’s effortlessly cool sound and vulnerable storytelling created the perfect formula for repeat listens. Besides helping Ross through a tough time, making Oxford Gardens also helped the multi-hyphenate find confidence in herself as an artist.

“I’ve watched people do this my whole life, so it was really cool to actually do it for myself,” she says. “I learned that I could do it.” Wielding dreamy vocals and a bewitching sound, Ross is poised to follow in the footsteps of the retro rockers she adored as a kid—and inspire a new generation to jam along.

This story appears in the pages of V147: now available for purchase!

Photography Tom Sloan

Fashion Brian Conway

Makeup Nicola Brittin (Saint Luke) using NARS

Hair Hiroki Kojima (Caren) using VIRTUE

Manicure Robbie Tomkins (LMC)

Production Lauren Sloan (Lalaland Production)

Digital technician Alex Gale

Photo assistants Seb McCluskey, Milan Rodriguez

Stylist assistants Keisha Adams, Nkechi Managwu

Makeup assistant Yolanda Dohr

Production assistant Jamie Alderman

Location Lock Studios