The New Royals
Joan Rivers, Kristen Wiig, Ellen Page, Kiernan Shipka, and Naomi Campbell and more appear in W’s October 2014 issue as the New Royals.
1
Kiernan Shipka New Royalty—Television
“The smoking in Mad Men is all done with herbal cigarettes, and my character, Sally Draper, first picked up a cigarette when she was 8. I’m not a pro at smoking, and at the end of the last season I was a mess. Sally lights a cigarette after kissing a boy, but I lit it backward. I had so much hairspray on that I was afraid of setting my hair on fire. The herbs from the cigarette got in my mouth, and I had trouble concentrating. Initially, I had been worried about the kiss. But kissing is much easier than smoking.”
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Charlotte Casiraghi Classic Royalty—Society
Although she had a baby boy only a few months before our photo shoot, Charlotte Casiraghi, who is a champion equestrian, looked slim and relaxed as she slipped into a Gucci gown. For 28, her manner was surprisingly serious, and, in fact, she may be more comfortable as a journalist than as an object of interest. In 2009, Casiraghi, who has a degree in philosophy and speaks three languages, self-published Ever Manifesto, a call to arms for better sustainability in fashion.“I haven’t been as conscious as I should have been,” Casiraghi said at the time. “We want to publish when we have something to say or people to support.” Spoken like a true royal.
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Cara Delevingne New Royalty—Fashion
“As a child, I loved being naked. My parents would have to force me to be dressed because otherwise I’d take my clothes off and run around the supermarket. Nudity was liberation to me. Freedom. My entire family is pretty nudist-y. We went to nude beaches a lot. I always wondered why the men on nude beaches had the smallest penises.”
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Stella McCartney New Royalty—Fashion
“When I received the OBE, I had to come up with something to wear to meet the queen. I wanted an image that would stand the test of time, but I also knew I had to personally interpret what that outfit would be. Tailoring is very British, so I decided to take a sculpted jacket from my winter 2012 collection and remake it in classic wool. At the last moment, I found out that royal custom dictated that I wear some sort of hat. I had planned on wearing jewelry that had belonged to my mum, so I decided to wear her pins on my head. With Philip Treacy’s help, we sewed them onto a fascinator. We added a veil, and I was set.”
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Kristen Wiig
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Naomi Campbell
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Carolina Herrera Classic Royalty—Fashion
“American women have always been very glamorous, but fashion changes. Now women like to be a little bit…different. Look at Rihanna—she’s called a fashion icon, but when someone recently asked me what I thought of her style, I said, ‘Well, when she wears a dress, I will tell you if she’s an icon or not. But for now, she’s naked.’ So, you see, style has definitely changed.”
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Joan Rivers Classic Royalty—Comedy
“I’ve always been an outsider, and that’s okay. I’ve never been invited to the White House. I’ve never been given awards. I’ve never been to the inside of anything. My maid was invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party, and she asked if she could borrow a wrap! [Laughs] My comedy has made me a total outsider, but that is what has kept me sharp all these years. To be relevant, you have to be an outsider.”
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Jaclyn Smith Classic Royalty—Television
“Charlie’s Angels was not my best audition. I was so scared. I had been the Breck Shampoo girl in commercials, and I had never done a series. They cast me partially because I was playing a model, and I was a model. What made Charlie’s different was that back then, women usually had secondary roles on TV, and we three girls were alive on the screen from beginning to end. From the first episode, we were like rock stars. Suddenly, we needed bodyguards. Unlike now, there were no stylists to help us with our ‘look.’ It was a different time: It was our hair, our bodies. What you saw was who we were.”
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Ellen Page New Royalty—Film
“I was 10 when I started acting. A casting director came to my school looking for kids. I auditioned for a TV movie called Pit Pony, and I got it. Acting became an immediate fixation. I was a child, but I was so ambitious. At 17, I costarred in Hard Candy, about a pedophile and his victim, whom I played. My character had to castrate the pedophile. I’ve always loved learning things for a part, and I remember researching castration and thinking, This is so interesting. I’m a nerd that way: I love the challenges of this job.”
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Anjelica Huston Classic Royalty—Film
“Because I spent long periods of time in front of the mirror, my childhood tutor commented that I was, by far, the vainest girl he’d ever met. But I was determining my fate. I had overheard a conversation between Mum and Dad. They feared that I was not going to be a beauty. And, looking at photographs of the time, I can see that I was certainly not promising as a femme fatale. I had a weak chin, and I walked with an apologetic hump. I swear it was by force of will that I was able to transform in any measure.”
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Kendra Spears New Royalty—Society
Kendra Spears entered the Ford Models Supermodel of the World competition when she was in college, and she signed a contract with the agency in 2008. (She is now with Next Model Management.) Her Cindy Crawford–esque looks (note the mole on her upper lip) have led to jobs with brands like Prada and Hermès. After a four-month engagement, she married Prince Rahim Aga Khan last year in Geneva wearing an ivory sari with gold embroidery and became Princess Salwa Aga Khan. Like true modern royalty, the princess went right back to work.
