Marie Claire (June 2005)
Gwen Stefani: “I’m a very different girl than I used to be”
Gwen Stefani’s own brand of sexy-cool has made her a style icon. With her first solo album and a line of clothes she’s designing herself, Stefani races into the future. Here, the songstress talks about staying true to herself through the firestorm of fame, her hope for a baby, and the real reason she wears those big, baggy jeans.
After years of fronting the Grammy-award-winning band No Doubt, Gwen Stefani decided it was time to branch out. She’s “on fire right now,” and who can argue? Her first solo album, a hip-hop inspired dance fest called Love. Angel. Music. Baby, was released in November 2004 and has already gone platinum; she’s just completed a European tour; the clothing line she designs, called L.A.M.B for short, is wildly successful; and a line of accessories and T-shirts called Harajuku Lovers – directly tied to her album – is set to launch this fall. It’s no wonder Stefani’s quirky sense of cool is now the backbone of her very own fashion empire – her sexy-sweet, gender-bending looks have inspired everyone from mall rats to rap moguls, changing the way the world thinks about style. For Stefani, life doesn’t imitate art, her life is her art
Girly Grunge
By her own admission, Stefani’s look is an ever-changing obsession that started long before she made it to the top of the charts. “Growing up in Anaheim, CA, I always made my own clothes,” she says. “In the beginning I’d go to thrift stores, or places like The Wet Seal and Contempo Casuals, and try to find something weird. Then I’d take it home and remake it. I had a sewing machine in my room; it was the danger zone. It was, like, pins and needles everywhere.”
Stefani’s brand of girlish grunge developed a small, cult-like following among the Gen X-ers who loved Ska music. “My girlfriend and I went to every single Scars and JC Penney’s and bought out every single child’s extra-large T-shirt and tank top. We printed pink No Doubt logos on them and sold them at our concerts.” Stefani paired her T-shirt with super-baggy pants culled from the boys’ section of thrift stores, “because I never really liked my legs or butt,” and her fans went wild. By the time the band started to make it nationally, there were legions of Gwen-itators.
Searching for… Something
Looking at Stefani now, in the studio for Marie Claire’s cover shoot, it’s hard to believe it all started with something so homespun. She is surrounded by racks and racks of brightly patterned couture clothing, and her trademark platinum hair cascades in curls halfway down her back. Stefani wears big, baggy jeans, torn and faded to perfection, and neon-green bra straps peek out from underneath a ribbed white tank. As our talk turns to her career, Stefani’s near-encyclopedic memory of every look worn, every lyric sung, and every concert played, is scary.
I flash Stefani a photograph of herself with fuchsia hair, circa 2000, and her face falls. “My boyfriend and I had just broken up,” she says of the time she and now-husband Gavin Rossdale almost called it quits. “You can tell by my style that I was searching so hard. I was 29, and I was like, Fuck it, I’m going to dye my hair pink. And I had braces, the one thin I bought when I got rich.”
Stefani admits the drastic look wasn’t just about a breakup. After two wildly successful albums, expectations were high for No Doubt to hit again. “It was a really hard time for me,” she says now. “I thought, I gotta be someone, I gotta live up to who I want to be.” It was during this time that Stefani wrote some of her best lyrics. “I really define myself as a songwriter. It’s pure torture, but it’s magic when it happens. When I realized I could write songs, that’s when I discovered myself. Before that, I didn’t feel I was good at anything. I’m a very different girl now than I used to be.”
The Bindi Boom
Stefani says the girl she used to be had no direction. “I had a hard time learning in school. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she says. She was taking art classes at a local community college, toying with the idea of working as a makeup artist, when the band got offered a European tour. Performing gave Stefani an outlet for the visual experimentation she loved – whatever inspired her got worked into her wardrobe – and she had an innate knack for clashing styles. “I went out with [No Doubt bassist] Tony Kanal for eight years. He’s Indian, and I grew up watching his mom. She’d get all made up, with her sari and her jewels on, and I thought she was so glamorous. I bought those stick-on earrings and started wearing them on my forehead as bindis.” When Stefani wore one in the “Just a Girl” video paired with sporty workout wear, it typified her fashion-blender sensibilities.
Girl Power
No Doubt’s popularity grew exponentially with each successive release, and Stefani rode the wave of huge sales and glowing reviews. When they released Rock Steady, their fifth album, Stefani says it was one of the best times in her life. “Our egos were gone,” she says of her bandmates. “We were just so in love with each other and so proud of the album. It was like, ‘This is crazy, how’d we get so far?’ ”
Stefani felt strong and confident, and the look she honed for the tour was a sort of edgy, sexy, urban chic. “I was inspired by a trip to Jamaica,” Stefani says of the mesh top she wore under a barely there bikini top in 2001. “I wore graffiti pants that looked like a mock-up of the album cover artwork, and I had just done this Pussycat Dolls [burlesque] show with these big ponytails, and I was like, I wanna do ponytails.” Stefani’s body, which she admits takes a lot of work to maintain, was ab-fab. “Having to work out sucks, but once you get me on the treadmill I’m happy,” she says. “I fight getting there, like everybody. It’s always been something I have to work and earn.”
Dream Dress
In 2002, Stefani married long-time love Rossdale in a traditional ceremony in London. “That was one of my best looks ever,” Stefani gushes. “I felt very beautiful. John Galliano did my gown. I talked to him on the phone and showed him pictures of things I liked. He sent drawings over, and the bottom of the dress was all pink. I was like, Is that a shadow, or is that really what he’s going to do? I never told him to make it pink.”
Stefani’s workload has been nonstop ever since the nuptials, and she credits her husband for “balancing me and reeling me in.” With a schedule like hers, it can’t be easy. “A great day for me is not getting out of bed,” she allows. “I like to see how many snack I can eat there, how many crumbs I can drop, and how many really bad TV shows I can watch. I also like the Discovery Channel, and shows about makeovers or babies being born.”
Clearly, motherhood is on her mind, and at 35, Stefani wrestles with the possibility of soon or never. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” she says. “I was hanging out with my nephew the other day, and he’s like a frickin’ Twinkie he’s so delicious. But it’s kind of not up to me. I’ve been on this journey, and I don’t want to be too greedy about what’s going to come next. I’ll be really happy when it happens.”
You Know You’ve Arrived When…
In 2003 No Doubt was tapped to perform at the Super Bowl, an honor she calls one of the best moments in her life. What’s more, Stefani shared the stage with Sting, whom she had long adored. “I actually met him for the first time when I was 16,” she says. “My dad worked for Yamaha motorcycles, and he got me backstage after one of the Police’s concerts. I was really fat and puberty-stricken, and my dad was like, ‘ Ask him for an autograph.’ So I did, and he was really mean. But I still loved him.” Stefani laughs at the memory. “When I met Sting years later, I told him that story, and he was like, ‘Oh man, I was such a dick back then,’ ” she says. “But he’s such a great guy.”
Stefani’s skyrocketing status opened unlikely doors, including Hollywood’s Golden Globe ceremony in 2004. “I felt very much out of my element there.I wore a very simple vintage Valentino gown, with my hair up in a French twist. The whole thing was inspired by Hitchcock’s Rear Window. I felt so sophisticated. The press kind of worked me over for that look, but then a year later they said they like it. Whatever.”
Stefani has learned to live with the bad reviews. It’s not like it ever discourages me from doing something I want to do,” she says. “I really don’t care what people say. If I followed what people said I should do, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
East Meets West
Stefani’s most recent style incarnation – sporty Lolita meets French maid – is actually her own take on a trend she saw in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood. “I was really inspired by the kids there,” she says. “They were all about self-expression through fashion, and this whole ping-pong match between Eastern and Western and how we steal each other’s ideas.”
Stefani says the idea of adding four Japanese backup dancers to her show came to her in a dream. Studying a 2005 red-carpet picture of herself with the girls, Stefani is loving the poufy crinoline skirts paired with neon knee pads that pop off the page. I pull out one last photo. It’s a picture of a brunette Stefani wearing almost the exact same crinoline skirt, circa 1989. “Do you see that?” she squeals. “It’s like the same look for 20 years. That’s so crazy! I feel like I’ve come full circle.” And with that, Stefani disappears through the racks of clothes.