• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

‘If I didn’t feel confident, I wouldn’t be dressing in underwear to make a living’ Model, mother, rock-star wife – Lily Aldridge talks to Tim Teeman PhotograPhs Danielle Levitt styling Jane Taylor-Hayhurst Opening spread: jacket, £148, Velvet (020-7580 8644); bra top, £1,343, and pants, £459, both Rochas (matchesfashion.com); boots, £645, Rupert Sanderson (rupertsanderson. com); bracelet, £330, Chanel (020-7493 5040) Opposite: tank top, £58, Velvet; body (worn underneath), Antonio Berardi at Harrods (020-7729 1234); skirt, £625, Victoria Beckham (selfridges.com); hair slide, £75, Hillier (giftlab.com) This page: dress, £148, Velvet; pearl belt, £1,040, Chanel The Lily Aldridge for Velvet collection will be available to buy from mid-March. For stockist details, call 020-7580 8644 or go to velvet-tees.com Hair Adrian Clark Make-up Cyndle Komarovski Model Lily Aldridge at IMG 00 The Times Magazine The Times Magazine 00 hen model Lily Aldridge was Left: with husband Caleb a teenager, she found a copy Followill, May 2011. Below: of Playboy in her artist father in last year’s Victoria’s Alan’s studio. “I thought, ‘Oh Secret Fashion Show my God, my dad’s reading Playboy, it’s like he’s having a crazy affair,’” she says in the Despite their professions, she claims: hushed bar of a New York “We’re super-low-key and very family- W hotel. “I ran upstairs to tell orientated.” There’s no rock-star wildness, my mother and she was like, beyond “liking a glass of wine”. ‘Well, there’s something you should know…’” Aldridge started modelling at 17. “I was Aldridge’s mother, Laura Lyons, revealed she pretty waify as a kid and was told by my was a former Playboy Bunny and Playmate. agents to gain weight. I ate five pizzas a day.” “I was pretty shocked and amazed, but I When Aldridge started out, the model thought it was cool. She was a ‘jet bunny’, too Carolyn Murphy warned her about girls who [a flight attendant on Hugh Hefner’s private partied too much. plane]. I have the little outfit she wore: a “She said, ‘Treat this job like a business. leather Sixties Mod-style long-sleeve dress Girls get caught up in it, but it’s just a job.’ It with a silver bunny sewn onto it.” was very good advice. I never did drugs: that Like mother, like daughter. Just as in the was not my thing, thank God.” Sixties and Seventies, when her mother was She appeared on the cover of Spanish the stuff of male fantasy, so today Aldridge, 27, Vogue at 17, but “being a Victoria’s Secrets is a Victoria’s Secret Angel, striding the Angel is like a dream. It’s an amazing piece of catwalk in her bra and knickers. American popular culture that all girls grow Her English father designed book covers She has just designed up with. You saw these models doing their for Penguin and album artwork for the Beatles fashion show on TV and you didn’t have to and Elton John, and the Aldridges were “really a collection for Ve lvet, say their last names. Giselle, Tyra, Heidi: good friends” with musicians such as Roger everybody knew who they were.” Daltrey. “I was raised on the Beatles and went one of the first labels She got her figure back after the birth of to a Who concert when I was 5.” her daughter within months. “It was really Modelling and fashion is the family she modelled for hard, but my body looked amazing.” She business. Aldridge’s half-brother Miles is trained with Mary Helen Bowers, who a fashion photographer, married to model coached Natalie Portman for her lead in Kristen McMenamy; half-sister Saffron is a she claims. “All the Angels have to have ballet drama Black Swan. model; and her sister Ruby modelled for Marc some other quality apart from their looks “I’m not self-conscious,” she says. “If I Jacobs. Lily grew up mostly in Santa Monica – personality, generosity – that sets them didn’t feel confident, I wouldn’t be dressing in and “a llittleittle bit” in England, where she formed apart.” What does shshee think of men ogling underwear to make a living,” she says. an attachment to PPGG Tips. her? “I don’t know. I try not to tthinkhink about She is, she insists, “really low-maintenance. Along with Miranda Kerr, Aldridge it. When I’m posing I’m doing it for other I love getting all sexy and dolled up, hot is one of the most papped of the women, thinking how much I lo ved and awesome, but life isn’t how it seems on Victoria’s SSeecretcret Angels, the looking at [similar] pictures as a billboard. It’s great that guys think I’m hot. top models who parade down a little girl. Men are looking “But I’m a woman’s woman. I loved how catwalks in Vic toria’s SeSecretcret at me, too, I k knownow that, and on Downton Abbey, the youngest daughter lingerie and outrageous if I didn’t ha ve mmenen fans I [dear departed Lady Sybil] fought for women’s angel wings. The annual wouldn’t ha ve wwoomenmen fans.” rights. I teared up watching that. I have rights Victoria’s SSecretecret Fashion How does shshee feel about now because of these women. I have the right Show TVTV spectacular pulls being seen by somesome as a sex to vote because of these feminists. I have the GE: REX FEATURES in an audience of more object? She looks askance. freedom now to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel PA than ten million viewers: “It’s tricky. I don’t see myself because of them.” a fle shy, fefeminism-never-minism-never- as that and it ’s wweeirdird to tthinkhink I’m not sure the suffragettes were marching happened procession of young of it that way.” for that kind of freedom. women in their undies. Aldridge is keen to bbuilduild her She finds elements of fame unsettling, such Victoria’s SSeecretcret’s 22012012 sales own brand. She has just designed as in an airport recently, when someone took were $6.12 billion (£3.9 billion); it has a collection for Velvet, one of the her picture on their phone. “Twenty minutes RK (THEJANENYC.COM). THIS more than 1,000 stores in the US and first labels she modelled for. ““IItt later, a picture appears on Twitter of me YO opened its first British ones last year. felt a no -brainer; it ’s mmyy style.” eating a sandwich. I love being recognised, “I lo ve VVicictoria’s SSeecretcret,” AAldridgeldridge Last yyeearar she gave bbirthirth to and I wanted to say to the person, you should NE, NEW says, insisting she is not playing the her daughter, Dixie. Her husband is have just come over and said hello.” JA corporate par rot. “I used to gogo to tthehe Caleb Followill, lead singer of Kings And Aldridge really doesn’t mind if THE mall as a teenager and buy it. I’m of Leon. She met him at Coachella lusty men are among them? She gives me AT wearing it right now .” ShShee smiles in 2007 and ask ed hhimim for a shot of a “like duh” look. “Obviously, they’re going vaguely naughtily. I – a fixed, full-time tequila: “I knew he had a crush on me.” me.” to look at pictures of girls in their underwear GRAPHED homosexual – smile back and sa y, ““JJoolllyly good.” TheiTheirr first date was at Nobu in London. and think they’re hot.” Then she grins. “And TO “Underwear modelling has changed,” “From then on, we w weerere inseparable.” they are hot.” ■ PHO 56 The Times Magazine.

Load more

  3

Copy Link