Cleo (May 2005)

Blonde & Bitchin’

She's married to a rock star, is in one of the coolest bands ever, has her own clothing line, released a solo album and been in a movie with Leo. Anything Gwen can't do?

Gwen Stefani arrives at the shoot dressed as the second half of her trademark contradiction: MGM starlet meets punk. She's wearing her own label, Lamb -- va-va voom sweater, jeans that look sewn on -- with a bare face and wet hair. It's hard to square this with the photographs that are regularly splashed across the fashion press: she always looks too perfect to be real.

Stefani does a good line in perfection, which is why this is her moment. At 35, she has graduated from much-fancied face of No Doubt to star of the front rows of fashion week. She's got a solo album and has her first movie out -- playing Jean Harlow in The Aviator. "I feel pretty lucky to be me," she says.

In the US, where the average pop icon is a 20-year-old Christian slapper cooing about innocence while shoving a snake down her Wonderbra, Stefani's kooky mix of tomboy cute and old-fashioned glamour, naughty kid and peroxide vamp, gives her a status no A-lister can match. Even in dirty-old-man trousers, cap and rasta string vest, she looks photogenic where others look like a senile burglar. Thirtysomethings admire her. Teenage skate kids want to be her. The world of high style has repeatedly given her its seal of approval. In the icon stakes, she can do no wrong. Not bad for a self-proclaimed geek from Anaheim, California.

Naturally, she doesn't think of herself as an icon. Surrounded by her posse, she's as excitable as a small girl at a slumber party. Who would guess that she and her band have been together for 17 years and sold 25 million albums?

Compared with other pop figures, Stefani's gift is innocence. Not for her shotgun marriages (Britney), the reality-television series (Jessica), the desperate search for a saleable identity (Posh) or the celebrity victimhood (J.Lo). She plays the role of pin-up with skill: never photographed without the ivory foundation, scarlet lips and winged eyeliner, never snapped falling out of a club, wasted at 4am. Courtney Love has compared her, in celebrity terms, to a high school cheerleader, with Love as the delinquent student in the smoking shed. "My thing is looking groomed," says Stefani, with a Marilynesque coo. "I want to look like I walked out of a f%#*ing Jean Harlow movie." So does Love, but Stefani is actually good at it.

Love's right about one thing: in rock'n'roll terms, Stefani is a goodie-goodie. She lived at home with her Irish-Italian, Catholic parents until she was 30. ("While I was looking for my mansion," she protests.) "They were strict, but in a very loving way." She slept with posters of Marilyn on the wall. "I was too shy to go on dates," she says. "The only line I ever used was 'I have a boyfriend'. I loved that excuse." She still maintains she's only ever had two boyfriends, her bandmate Tony Kanal and her husband, Gavin Rossdale, the lead singer of Bush, with whom she lives in London for part of the year. "I have no experience to give love advice."

Stefani joined her brother's band as a 17-year-old in pencil skirts, but they didn't have a hit until she was 26. "I wrote a few songs. Nobody was ever going to hear them," she says. But they did. In 1996, "Don't Speak", went to No. 1 around the world. That success doesn't seem to have spoilt her. Every celebrity says this -- remember J.Lo's "Jenny From The Block"? -- but with Stefani, you believe that fame is a by-product of her love of music and fashion, not the other way round.

Not that she hasn't cashed in on her image. Her fashion label, Lamb, has grown "from a pile of clothes on the kitchen table" to a brand everyone digs. In an age of candy-coloured Vuitton, Stefani's timing has been perfect, with cashmere argyle vests and cutesy lamb charm toggles. She knows how fashion works. When London was doing grunge, she was doing killer lips. When Britney was doing trailer trash, she was into Vivienne Westwood gowns. "Gwen's the iconic girl of the moment," says Gela Nash, cofounder of the LA label Juicy Couture. "Definitely the It Girl when it comes to anything to do with fashion and rock."

Stefani's rock kudos -- hard won -- is as solid as her fashion status. Her solo album boasts a roster of big-name collaborators, including Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z and Outkast's Andre 3000. This is partly down to her ear for a tune, but they also know she does things differently. In the Alice In Wonderland-inspired video for "What You Waiting For?", she careers into an institute treating writer's block in high heels and a bomber jacket, and is chased round a maze in skirtless Marie Antoinette outfits. "Nothing's too cheesy, too gaudy, too much," she says.

In 2002, Stefani married Rossdale, her boyfriend of five years. They made up for the long-distance dating with two weddings ("John Galliano made me a couture Christian Dior dress -- it had to be worn twice"), and the California girl had a British hen night, with a brave finish "in tears in my front yard from drinking too much. Next morning, at the wedding shower, everybody was in sunglasses." She was said to be "devastated" at the news that Rossdale has a love child. Who knows how she really feels? What's certain is their marriage goes beyond the famosexual leanings of most celebrity couples. Strolls on Primrose Hill and "family time" are the cool, modern take on celebrity coupling.

However even cool, modern celebs get the blues. "I got married, went on tour and didn't see Gavin," she says. "It was brutal. I kept hearing this stuff in my ears: 'I want a baby, I want to do a film, I'm gonna die.' You realise you've done the same thing half your life."

For now, she's a part-time Brit and liking it. "If it wasn't for London, there wouldn't have been No Doubt," she says. "It's the whole inspiration." And although the tabloids have trailed her in hope of a glossy, megawatt picture, she knows how to handle them: apply lipstick and keep smiling. "I know all the time that I'll walk out the door and they'll be there. But you can't complain about it. That would be stupid." And stupid she ain't. She knows how to play the game. She knows how to act the good girl while dressing the rebel. "A rebel? Really?" she beams, then rolls her eyes. "Oh, look at me, that makes me so happy."

"How I got this hot body"

Think a rack like this comes easy? No way. Gwen works damn hard to get those abs of steel. We're talking everyday work-outs and weight-lifting Gwen also admits to scrutinising what she eats. "I feel like if I don't eat, I might lose a pound. It's a struggle," she says. But even though she admits to being vain -- "I'll look in the mirror and go 'Oh my God! Look at that" -- she does let up sometimes. "if I want a rod slice of pizza, I'll have it."

Did Gavin's love child come between them?

Gwen's marriage to Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale hit a rocky patch when it was revealed that he is the father of 16-year-old model Daisy Lowe. As a teenager, Gavin ran with a crowd that included Sadie Frost, Jude Law, Kate Moss and Daisy's mum Pearl Lowe. While Pearl always claimed Daisy was fathered by a then-boyfriend, a DNA test last year revealed the truth. Gwen has refused to comment, but she's quick to hose down people who dissect her relationship. "I put my music out there to be judged -- either shot down or embraced. But my marriage is my marriage and for anyone to have an opinion about it, they can f%#* off. It has nothing to do with anyone but me and him."