From the January 11, 2009
ObserverFrom the bland to the blondeWhen the celebrity supermodel phenomenon ground to a halt, fashion went super-dull. The catwalks were filled with a parade of nameless, faceless, homogenous clothes horses. No one knew who the new models were, and no one cared. Then came Agyness Deyn. Lynn Barber meets the Lancashire girl turned international style icon
Lynn Barber
The Observer, Sunday 11 January 2009
Just before Christmas, I went to a daffy treasure hunt hosted by Katie Grand, who founded Pop magazine and is now about to launch Love. It was held at the Royal Academy and there was a great mob of paparazzi outside so I asked who they were waiting for. They said Ag, which wasn't very helpful, but I found out later they were waiting for the model Agyness Deyn, 25, who is supposed to be 'the new Kate Moss'. Of course she is not remotely like Kate Moss either in looks or in character, but she is the latest English model to take the world by storm.
I found her wearing a pink satin dress, which Giles Deacon made her for the party, sipping tea with her friends, but when Grand introduced us, Deyn leapt to her feet with the sort of old-fashioned good manners I thought no one learned any more. She was friendly and sweet, so when Grand suggested I interview her, we arranged to meet at the Russian Tea Room in Primrose Hill.
She looked extremely pretty at the Katie Grand party, but next morning, in the Russian Tea Room, she looked utterly amazing. She was wearing a man's black jacket and denim shirt, with a red beret perched on her platinum hair, her pale porcelain skin set off by black Alistair Darling eyebrows, her long long long legs encased in red snakeskin jeans ending in patent Doc Martens. Her delicate, almost ethereal beauty reminds me a bit of the young Debbie Harry, but she says her idol as a teenager was the model Stella Tennant - she liked her beetling eyebrows, pierced nose and unconventional attitude.
Talking in her flat Rochdale accent, she explains that she always uses Primrose Hill as her base in London because she used to have a flat here and nowadays stays with a friend round the corner. She has lived in New York for the past three years but had come over to London for the Katie Grand party and a Mystery Jets gig and was planning to spend a few days hanging out with friends before going to stay with her parents (her mother and stepfather) in Manchester and catching up with her elder brother, a pilot, and her younger sister, an artist. Then back to New York to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, Albert Hammond Jr of the Strokes, and her two dogs.
Given that she is obviously such a sensible down-to-earth Mancunian lass, why does she have such an irritatingly affected name? It sounds all right - pronounced Agnes Dean (Agnes was her grandmother's name) - but then the silly spelling makes it an anagram of Deny Gayness, which is daft (although she has a big lesbian following, she is not a lesbian). Why couldn't she have stayed Laura Hollins? But she changed her name long before she started modeling, and explains as follows: 'I was into numerology at the time, and I was talking to my mum about it and saying: "Mum, I'm thinking of changing my name because I've added up all the numbers and I think I want to change it." And we were actually in a health food shop and walking round the aisles and we get to the counter still talking about it and on the counter was a magazine that said: "Change your name, change your life." And I was, like: "It's a sign!" So then I decided: "Right, I'll change."' I stare at her blankly. Does she really believe all that stuff? 'Well, it's not like your name is set in stone. I'm the kind of person that is not really attached to anything - I would never be attached to a name or a dress or a house or a car - so whatever makes you happy. And at that point in time I was like, wow!' Nobody in the family calls her Laura any more, and her mother and sister have also changed their names. Maybe she just wanted to shed her father's name.
Her father works for the Royal Mail; her mother is an ENT nursing specialist at Liverpool Hope Hospital. Despite being practicing Roman Catholics, they divorced when Agyness - or Laura in those days - was 12 or 13. Was that upsetting? 'Yeah. Yeah it was. But I was always quite quiet - I was never really a drama queen, so I kind of, like, blocked it out.' Her mother remarried and Deyn talks fondly of her stepfather, who works as a food technologist. But when I ask about her father, her beautiful eyes fill with tears. 'He remarried and stuff, but I don't really see him that much. Every now and then. It is sad. But sometimes it goes so far, you can never get back, you know?'
She was born in Littleborough, near Rochdale; she grew up in Rawtenstall, Greater Manchester and went to a Catholic school where her favourite subjects were music and drama and, more surprisingly, maths and business studies. She claims to love maths, and I imagine she has a good financial head on her shoulders. Her mother encouraged all three of the children to take part-time jobs to pay for their extras, and one of her jobs was in the local fish and chip shop - a fact the tabloids will never let her forget. When she was voted Model of the Year at the 2007 British Fashion Awards, the Manchester Evening News produced the immortal headline: 'Chippie girl to conquer the world'.
The great influence in her childhood, apart from her mother, was Henry Holland, her gay best friend. They met when they were about 13, and he remembers being struck by 'just this huge big smile, with braces on her teeth, and the fact she was so sweet and friendly'. He, Deyn and another friend called Jessica Fletcher, who now works with Holland on his fashion label House of Holland, spent their teens hanging out together - they all had their heads shaved and they'd sit in the pub and people would stare at them. When Holland moved to London to study fashion journalism, Deyn missed him so much she kept going to London to stay with him. He was living in university halls of residence where he wasn't allowed to have guests overnight but he used to sneak her in to share his single bed.
Holland remembers that her style changed when she came to London and discovered charity shops and car-boot sales. 'Up north, it's much more about labels. In London she started to develop her own style.' And in one of her forays to a charity shop in Kentish Town she was spotted by a model scout, who signed her up. 'And then everything just kind of happened,' recalls Deyn. 'It's really funny, because both of us have always been such dreamers, and Henry would say: "When you're a famous model" and I'd say: "When you're a famous fashion editor", and then I was signed up by a model agency and he became fashion editor of Smash Hits, which was one of his dreams. So it was like we were ticking them off the list, and it was kind of: whoa, this is strange!'
She was 19, still intending to go to university, when she started modelling. She loved the work. 'It didn't matter what the job was - I loved it, I just loved it.' But she hated all the go-sees and inevitable rejections. 'I used to go around London seeing clients, and you used to have to queue up for an hour with all these other girls to get a job and then you wouldn't get it, or you'd be down to the last two for a job and you wouldn't get it. But you just have to take that on the chin. People used to get really competitive with each other, but you know, no one looks the same, so it just depends on what they're looking for.'
But it forced her to grow up quite quickly. 'I think modelling was like the university of life, really. You get to travel but you get thrown into this adult world, which is kind of quite scary.' She remembers one particular trip abroad when no one spoke to her and she felt very isolated. 'It can be really lonely sometimes if they don't talk to you and it was, like, a week. But there were lads on the shoot as well and they were great, so I just hung out with them. I've always got on with lads, more than I have with girls.'
As a model based in London she was in demand, but mainly for poorly paid editorial work, and she often had to take bar jobs to make ends meet. It was only when she moved to New York three years ago that her career really took off. This was all thanks to Katie Grand, she says - 'She's great. She's been a real mentor for me.' Deyn had been sent to New York on a photo shoot for a British magazine and Katie Grand saw her sitting in a café and asked what New York agent she was with. Deyn said she didn't have a New York agent, so Katie Grand took a napkin and wrote down the number of the DNA agency and said: 'Ring Louie [Chaban].' So that's what Deyn did, and that's when her career took off.
She walked into the agency and the receptionist said, 'Oh sorry, but we don't do walk-ins.' Deyn wailed: 'Oh, but I'm going home tomorrow and I don't think I'll ever be coming back!' So the receptionist went round the back, where Louie was having lunch, and said: 'You should really see this girl', and he groaned but came out and saw Deyn and immediately said he'd like to represent her. But when she told her English agency that she'd signed with a New York agent, they sacked her. So then she moved to New York and went to work for Louie, who totally supported her. In London, she recalls, her agency was always telling her to look more feminine, to wear heels and dresses, but when she asked Louie what to wear for her first casting, he said: 'I don't care what you wear - wear what you're wearing now.' 'And I was wearing Doc Martens and a ripped-up T-shirt and I thought: "Brilliant! I can just be myself!" And going to New York made me think: "OK, this is a career now."'
She likes New York so much she'll probably stay there. She says it's much easier working there, and she loves the way of life. And of course her boyfriend Albert Hammond Jr is American. When I ask how long she has been going out with him, she says promptly: 'Since May 31st - that was our first date.' He is only her third boyfriend ever. 'I had one boyfriend from when I was 12 all the way through school and college, and then we split up and I went out with Josh [Hubbard, of the Paddingtons] for four years and, like, now I'm with Albert.' Had she already split up with Josh Hubbard? 'Yes, a few months before we'd officially split up, but it's hard, you know - you don't see each other for six months because we lived in different places and were both working [he lives in Hull]. It was kind of like a mutual decision.' So it wasn't too heartbreaking? 'Oh it was. Because you're with someone for so long and they're your best friend, so it's like losing a friend as well. But I'm just so happy at the moment.' One of the tabloids recently said that she was engaged to Hammond. She says she's not, but obviously would like to be - 'I suppose if you know, you know.'
Recently Deyn did a shoot for Katie Grand when she had to spend the whole day jumping off a New York fire escape, naked, for the photographer Ryan McGinley. She did it for 11 hours, landing on a pile of mattresses, and was black and blue the next day. So why did she agree to do it? 'Oh, Ryan. I love his pictures, and I totally trusted him. But it was like the fourth leg of the fire escape and I was jumping off naked, and I was in a robe and I'd climb to the top and then you threw your robe down, so when you jumped down you could just put it back on. But once you've thrown the robe down, either you jump off or you walk down naked. So I would just have to jump off! But it was really funny because it was a residential building, and through the window where I was jumping off, there were two old guys playing cards. And the first time they saw this naked girl outside their window they looked a bit surprised, but then I was jumping off all day and by the end they were like: "Hi Agyness!" People were watching from the windows and there must have been some paparazzi there because it ended up in the Sun newspaper.'
Paparazzi are a constant presence in her life but, unlike most celebs, she refuses to grumble about them. 'I don't want to stop being normal,' she says. 'Like yesterday, I was walking from Primrose Hill to Henry's office at Tottenham Court Road, a really nice walk through the park, and there were some guys taking my picture and I stopped and we had a chat and shared a few Wine Gums. I think they're just earning their wage and everyone's got to do their job. Or, you know, at the Katie Grand party there were about 15 of them outside, and I was like: "Guys, do you mind if I have a cigarette first?" And they're: "Sure, if we can have a picture after you're finished." And then one of them went to take a picture and the others were all like: "Hey, Agyness is smoking! You can't take her picture now." So I think if you're, like, give and take, you can get on with them. But in New York you never see them, because they use long lenses, so you never have any contact and they're always at the end of the block. I have more of a rapport with the English ones than I do with the Americans.'
But she is sometimes annoyed by made-up stories in the British press, like a recent one that said she was going backpacking round Europe for a year. It was news to her. Or another that said she had lied about her age. It's true, she says, that when she first gave an interview to Pop magazine she said she was 15 or something, just taking the mick, but she was amazed when the Mail translated that as lying about her age. (For the record, she will be 26 on 16 February.) And she worries about reporters harassing her family and friends. 'It got a bit weird because newspapers started knocking on my parents' front door and asking around at my old school. But, you know, what are they going to find out? That I was in the netball team? I don't really read the papers anyway.'
In the past she was sometimes photographed stumbling out of parties looking a bit the worse for wear, but she doesn't drink any more. She stopped when she started going out with Hammond because 'he doesn't drink or anything, so I decided I wouldn't either because it's weird if you're on different levels. Sometimes I'll have a glass of champagne, or a really nice glass of wine if I'm having a steak and chips in a good restaurant, so I'm not, like, never say never. But I don't really drink any more.'
Anyway, she's not really a party girl. She used to be, when she first came to London, but nowadays she usually only goes to things like the Fashion Awards or the Katie Grand party when it would be rude not to turn up. Quite often she is in bed by 10. She gets up at seven, does yoga, walks the dogs, and sometimes gets up even earlier in New York to attend a 6.45 yoga class. She has no particular beauty routine - 'I tried going for facials, but they made my skin worse so I just stopped' - though she does try to keep out of the sun. She eats healthily and has never suffered from anorexia. She and Hammond like going out for dinner but often spend evenings at home listening to music. She has many acquaintances but few close friends - 'Henry and Jessica will always be there, but sometimes our schedules are so busy that I won't speak to them for a week.'
Although she is reluctant to criticize the fashion industry, there are hints that she has seen its dark side. She was comparatively old when she started - 19 - but even so found it 'scary' to be thrown into this adult world and worries about what happens to girls who start at 12 or 13. And there are monsters out there. 'There are people - I've heard them saying: "Oh, you're too fat to be in the show" right in front of everyone. You've got to have a really tough skin. I hate to say it's all bad, because it isn't, but then there are people who are absolute monsters and make you feel like shit and you think: why? It's not as if I block it out - I'm aware of all the negativeness around - but I kind of don't choose to register it. I just think: "That's how they are, those people, and it's not their fault."' Will she name names? 'No!' she laughs. 'And then there are some amazing people who make you feel so inspired, like John Galliano, or Christopher Bailey from Burberry - he's just the nicest northern lad you'll ever meet. And Giles [Deacon] and Katie [Grand] - they're quite real at the bottom of it.' But when I ask whether she meet lots of very self-obsessed people in the fashion world, she agrees fervently: 'Yes, I do.I don't have that many friends.'
Are there any models she would refuse to work with? 'No. I'd never do that. I've had people do that to me, though. I don't know why. But if a younger model came along and they were getting, like, really successful, I would never be jealous, because they don't even look like me.I think you should help people that are coming up in the industry, especially with it being quite scary sometimes.' She remembers that Stella Tennant was kind to her at the beginning, when she was working on her first Burberry campaign and very nervous, and Karen Elson has also been 'really nice'. How does she feel about being called the new Kate Moss? She answers diplomatically: 'I think Kate's had an amazing career - I mean, she still has an amazing career - and she's really beautiful. But no one's the same. I'm not the new anything; I'm just Agyness.'
But there are hints that she is looking for a career beyond modelling. Until recently she sang in an indie group called Lucky Knitwear, but that has petered out. So now she is attending acting school in New York and has just made a short film called The Right Side of my Exultant Brain for a friend from New York Film Academy, and says: 'It was really good fun and it was great being surrounded by friends for the first thing I did, so you can kind of feel freer to explore it a little bit more.' Does she hope to do more acting? 'Yes. I need to have a lot of things going on; I can't just do one thing. Like, I can't only do modelling because then I'd hate it.'
But in a way, she says, modelling is acting. 'It's so weird because it's like I'm pretending to be a model. And when I get on a shoot, and they say, "Be sexy" or "Be ladylike", I have to think: OK, I'm turning into that character. And then after the shoot I'm back to normal.' She once said: 'I'm not sexy' and I wondered whether she meant in photographs or in real life. 'I don't think of myself as sexy. But I think when I'm doing a shoot that I'm being sexy.' And in real life? 'I suppose growing up I didn't think I was, but now more and more I'm feeling comfortable with myself.'
What does she expect to be doing in 10 years' time? 'I think I'll still be in New York. I want to have a family, but I want to start doing stuff - I don't know what it is, but I feel that in 10 years' time I want to be doing something that benefits people, and I don't know what it is, but I just have this feeling inside me.' Does she mean, say, like Angelina Jolie being an ambassador for Unicef, that sort of thing? Mmm, she says, doubtfully, obviously not meaning that but too polite to say so. And then she tells me where she is going after our interview - to Great Ormond Street Hospital, to visit some children who wrote to say they'd like to meet her. 'I love doing stuff like that,' she confides. It could be quite upsetting, I warn her. 'Yes,' she says earnestly. 'But if I can help in any way, even just by going in... And if it is upsetting, it just puts things in perspective and makes you appreciate your own life. When bad shit happens, you get over it. But some people don't, you know.' Agyness Deyn is more than just a pretty face.
