InStyle (September 2007)
The sweet life
[also appears in InStyle UK, November 2007]
She’s got it all -hit records, a hot clothing line, a new fragrance and a rocker husband who cooks for her. No doubt about it: Gwen Stefani is living it up, especially when she’s just hanging out backstage with baby Kingston.
At a recent stop of Gwen Stefani’s Sweet Escape tour, the centre of attention is making quite a scene backstage. Shrieks pierce the air. Objects are flying. It’s not Gwen, of course. It’s one-year-old Kingston, happily throwing his toys around the room. The singer has brought her son along and he has adapted admirably to road life. “Although this morning he woke up at six,” she says. “And I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to die right now’. I definitely don’t get enough sleep, but I’d rather spend time with him. I’ve got this extra-fun, amazing little guy who just wants to hang out with me.”
Usually, backstage rooms are fetid and depressing, but not this one. You’d never know it was in Omaha arena, It’s done up in a crisp black and white: the walls are papered with a graphic pattern the chic sofa is black and a huge vase of white lilies sits on the coffee table. Kingston’s adjoining room is decorated with light blue, checked fabric and his crib is piled with a rainbow of stuffed animals.
“I really do have it luxurious out here,” Gwen says happily. As she reclines in a chair, the 27-year-old looks effortlessly glamorous, a Horst photo come to life. She wears a fitted red and blue striped blazer from her L.A.M.B clothing line, dark skinny jeans with a high waist and vertiginous caramel stilettos. Everything about her glows and gleams: her platinum hair gathered in a high ponytail, her ruby manicure, her creamy skin, the jeweled ring on her finger. Today, only two thirds of her family is here: her husband, Brit rocker Gavin Rossdale, who often comes to the shoes, is at home in LA working on a solo album. (The couple recently sold their Los Feliz digs for a Beverly Hills mansion formerly owned by Jennifer Lopez.)
Gwen grins as Kingston spots her visitor and lurches over with a sunny smile. He’s wearing blue trousers and a pink and white checked shirt (“His father bought him that”). A happy child with ginger curls and his mother’s dark eyes, he attempts a wobbly walk. Gwen picks him up and summons the nanny. “We won’t get anything done otherwise,” she says as he begins to wail. “He has always been easy-going and chill, but now he’s going through a real clingy phase.”
The singer turns her attention to a pile of new handbag samples from L.A.M.B. “I’m so excited about these,” she says. Gwen is the girliest girl imaginable. It looks for a moment like she’s going to toss them giddily into the air. She pulls out a green bag with gold studs. “This looks disgusting,” she says (translation: it’s gorgeous). As she rummages through them, US rapper Akon, who is her opening act, wanders in and seizes the green one. “Yo, this is crazy. These bags are so classy, man,” he says. “This is so dope.”
“It’s sick!” Gwen cries. L.A.M.B (named after her mantra “love, angel, music, baby”) launched in 2004 and has grossed $100 million over the past four years. The latest edition to the empire is Gwen’s fragrance, out this month, called L (short for “L.A.M.B” and “love”). A beguilling mixture of rose, lily of the valley and sweet pea (like the one her mother grew in her backyard), the scent was designed to be fresh, clean and feminine. “I wanted to be strict in making sure that I’d really wear it,” she says. “I don’t want to lie and say ‘It’s great’. Same with the clothes – I’m doing it for me.”
And the juggernaut rolls on: soon L.A.M.B will launch denim, watches and shoes. “I never thought I would get in this deep,” Gwen says. “Like, I’m panicked.” It’s all part of a larger plan. Although she continues to crank out such hits as “4 in the Morning”, she’s started designing for the next phase in her life. “I wanted to do something that was more creative but wasn’t music, because I don’t think I can do this forever. I’m already in shock that they let me do music this long,” says the singer, who had her first hit with No Doubt in 1995 (the album Tragic Kingdom sold 16 million copies worldwide).
For Gwen, music and fashion have always been intertwined. She grew up in Anaheim, California, the second of four children. her father Dennis was a Yamaha marketing executive, her mother Patti, a homemaker, who nurtured Gwen’s interest in making clothes. A good Catholic girl, she held on tightly to her femininity, even as she stomped around the stage in Doc Martens. “I’m the girl who would wear baggy jeans but not forget to put on tons of make-up,” she says, recalling her look from the band’s video for “Just a Girl”.
Gwen served as frontwoman for 17 years, seven of which were spent dating band-mate Tony Kanal (their break-up inspired several hits including “Don’t Speak”). In 1995, she met Gavin when No Doubt opened on tour for Bush, the British rock act he fronted. She was instantly smitten and they married seven years later. In 2004, she went solo for the exuberant dance disc Love Angel Music Baby and during the tour, Gwen discovered she was pregnant. She kept her secret from the fans, but as she grew larger and her breath grew shorter, she struggled to change into nine costumes a night. Often, she would burst into tears before going on stage. “It was terrible,” she says. “I was bloated and I just felt so gross.”
But in comparison, this tour has been “shockingly fun”, says the new mother, in no small part because it’s a family affair. Before her shows, she sings lullabies like “Twinkle, Twinkle” to her son as she puts him to bed. “But he sings a lot to himself. He’s just getting into music. he does the whole head-bouncing thing.” She sighs. “I love him so much. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
And because Kingston’s along for the ride, she and Gavin haven’t missed any milestones, though they don’t party like most rock stars. For Mother’s Day, they attend a brunch – complete with ice swans on the buffet table – at the golf resort where they were staying. For Kingston’s first birthday, they celebrated at Otto, a popular haute pizzeria in New York. “My parents flew out and Kingston had pizza; it was really cute,” she says. “My parents live for kids. That’s all they really care about.”
Gwen fully plans on giving her folks more grandchildren. “Obviously I’m in a race to have another, but I don’t want to do it while I’m on tour,” she says. “And I want to do another No Doubt record. But I can’t wait to get pregnant again. It’s so fun and consuming and romantic.” Gavin, she says, has fully embraced fatherhood. “He’s super into being a dad,” she says. He has also mastered another domestic art: “He’s a creative cook. He makes whatever I crave, even when nothing seems to be left in the fridge”.
Cooking is one of the few things she can’t do. “When I was backstage at her LA shows,” recalls Gwen’s longtime friend Vicki Lovine, author of The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy series, “out stepped Gwen looking magnificent – and she’s just nursed the baby! Hello! She’s bigger than life. How about: ‘I can bring home bacon, fry it up in a pan and do it in 7in platforms and nurse a baby in one hand’.” She laughs, “Gwen’s no ordinary human being but she’s a real human being.”
It’s true: even with her incandescent star quality, there’s still something of the nice OC mall girl about Gwen. Her on stage persona is flirty, but it never strays into raunch. “Everyone’s in such a rush to show they’re sexy,” she says. “Anyone can be sexy. We all have the same body parts. It’s pretty boring.” She shrugs. “Life’s not so short that you need to give it all away in five seconds. That was never my thing.”
Instead, she went for more innocent pleasures. As a kid, she would race home from school with her friends, eager to play dress-up. “I’ve always loved beauty. I was the girl who was, like ‘Ask your mum if we can play with clothes and make-up’,” she says. “I could do that for hours. And you know what? I’m doing the same thing now that I was doing when I was ten.”
Gwen Stefani’s On-The-Road Essentials
Germ patrol, part 1
"I need flip-flops for when I take a shower in an arena. The showers are horribly gross.”
Baby on board
“There’s a crib for Kingston with his little sleepy-time things on my tour bus. It’s pretty adorable. And there’s also a big playpen with a gate so that he can sleep in there if he wants. It’s perfect for me too— sometimes he plays in there with me if I want to lie down.”
No sweat
“I’ve had the same trainer, Mike Heatlie, for 12 years. He is the Superman of my tour—he also serves as my head of security and occasional nanny. Mike is Kingston’s favorite! I’ve tried yoga and Pilates before, but I just prefer old-school fitness workouts. And I really get into it. We work out probably five times a week at least.”
Germ patrol, part 2
“Lots of Purell hand sanitizer. Oh, yes. I have to be careful. I have a sore throat now.”
Clearing the air
“It can get really smelly backstage, so I light Diptyque candles. They are the best.”
Instant replay
“I have to have my video camera. Kingston just took his first steps, and I’ve got it on video! We were in my dressing room, and one of the wardrobe girls asked me, ‘When did this walking thing start?’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ So we said, ‘Come on. King—you’ve got to do it again!’ And he took, like, four or five steps. My Pookie has also learned how to make a scrunchy face.”
You asked Gwen Stefani on instyle.com
What was your first fragrance?
“Love’s Baby Soft. Probably because it was the one that I saw over and over again in commercials. I’ve always been into beauty products. As a kid one of my favorite stores was Sav-On Drugs. I just loved the smell of L’Oreal lipstick.”