Straight-talking, sexy, Hudson denim poster
girl and Madonna’s new muse. We spend one day in Paris with the irresistible
Georgia May Jagger.
It’s a sweltering afternoon in Paris.
Outdoor cafés overflow, boats full of tourists glide up and down a glittering
Seine and little dogs pant in the shade. Meanwhile, in a dark studio off the
rue Claude Decaen, Georgia May Jagger is crouching inside a cardboard washing
machine.
Never
mind the glorious weather, it’s business as usual for the 20-year-old model.
Never mind the glorious weather, it’s
business as usual for the 20-year-old model. As the face of Hudson — aka the
denim brand whose spray-on skinnies arc an A-list staple - she’s starring in a
series of short films (directed by a team of alarmingly good-looking stubbled
Frenchmen) to celebrate ten years of the label. This is where the washing
machine comes in — one film’s finale sees her burst from it in a confetti
shower, like a beautiful jack-in-the-box.
Even half-immersed in a fake kitchen
appliance, it’s hard to lake your eyes off her. She might have looked every
inch the fresh-faced ingénue when she arrived make-up free at the studio this
morning, hut add lights, a shimmering silver top and a slick of MAC’s Lady
l)anger red lipstick and she morphs into a total siren.
It’s
this clear-eyed approach to her world that makes her so likeable.
Spend a day in Georgia’s company and we
challenge you not to come away smitten. There’s the obvious fact that she’s
drop-dead gorgeous: daughter of Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger and Texan
supermodel Jerry Hall, she’s a faultless genetic cocktail of mum’s slender
frame and dad’s bee-stung lips. But there’s also a natural confidence and a
wry, very British sense of humour that makes you forget she’s barely out of her
teens. “Am I getting a good write-up?” she asks, calling across the studio with
a grin and a cocked brow.
Raised by Jerry in Richmond, London, with
her three siblings - her parents divorced when she was seven — a fashion career
might have seemed inevitable, having watched her mum, sister Lizzie (a face of
Marks & Spencer) and recently married jewellery designer half-sister Jade —
former Matthew Williamson muse - blaze a trail. Was she following their lead?
“Oh no!” she says, eyes widening. “I was really against modelling. When you’re
younger, you never want to do what your siblings or parents are doing.”
Hailed
as a modern Bardot for her bed-head tresses and pillowy pout; in the space of
two years, she fronted lavish campaigns for Versace
But then, there’s nothing like David Bailey
to change your mind: when she was 14, Jerry commissioned him to shoot her
portrait and a young Georgia discovered a talent for being in front of the
camera. When, little more than two years later, she made her catwalk debut for
Vivienne Westwood, Mick’s little girl was suddenly the toast of the town.
Hailed as a modern Bardot for her bed-head tresses and pillowy pout; in the
space of two years, she fronted lavish campaigns for Versace, joined Kate MOSS
as a face of Rimmel London and closed the 2011 Chanel cruise show on the back
of a motorbike. And, of course, there was her genius casting in 2009 as
Hudson’s poster girl, where her brand of insouciant cool has proved such a
perfect match for the label that, last year, she designed her own mini range of
denim.
Sipping tea in the upstairs dressing room,
she’s got the off-duty model look down pat: Hudson jeans, scuffed Acne hiker
boots and a grey crop top baring her flat-as-a-pancake midriff. This, she says,
is her fall-back outfit: “It’s really fun to dress up, but only occasionally,”
she muses. “I appreciate those actresses who go all-out on the red carpet with
big dresses and trains, but I don’t know how they do those events every night.
It looks a bit uncomfortable.”
She travels a lot, but is based London,
part of a gilded social set that includes Burberry model Cara Delevingne,
It-girl Suki Waterhouse and her punk-rocker and model boyfriend Josh McLellan.
Given the circles she moves in, it’s a little surprising to find she’s not such
a fan of the party scene. “I don’t really like going to fashion parties, I find
them a bit...” she trails off, “well, some are okay, but I’m more about hanging
out with my friends.”
“I
don’t really like going to fashion parties, I find them a bit...”
There’s something very normal about this
girl who comes from a family that’s anything but; you sense she takes her
famous heritage with a liberal pinch of salt. It’s this clear-eyed approach to
her world that makes her so likeable. When I ask if she’s been to Paris many
times before, she jokes, “Oh yes, every week!” and of her beauty regime she
says, “I’m sure I’m meant to suggest some amazing tip here, but I think you’ve
just got to keep your skin out of the sun. I don’t plan on plastic surgery, so
it’s important to wear sunblock”.
Her style icons, she tells mc, include the
Queen — “I love how she does colour” - and Ziggy Stardust - “Everyone enjoys
rehashing a bit of the Seventies, don’t they?” We imagine she’s inherited one
hell of a wardrobe from that era. Does she borrow clothes from Jerry? “Oh yeah.
Whatever ones will fit me. She’s got rid of a lot of her old stuff, though when
there was that Eighties revival a few years ago, she was like [in an American
accent], ‘I never thought I’d be able to wear my shoulder pads again, this is
so cool!’”
“But
fashion really is about having fun.”
Last year, she moved to New York to study
art and photography and live with Lizzie, before returning home to do a course
at the London College of Communication, She’s always loved animals (“I wanted
to be a vet when I was younger”) and her long-term goal is to be a wildlife
photographer.
“My
mum says it’s important to have fun and not take yourself too seriously. A lot
of people seem to forget that,” she pauses. “But fashion really is about having
fun.”
A few weeks after the shoot, I check her
Twitter and she’s on safari in South Africa, posting pictures of buffaloes,
giraffes and a grinning self-portrait with the words “so happy” next to it. She
seems more in her element leaning out of a dusty jeep with a camera than posing
in a designer frock.
Though that particular career path may have
to wait for now. The fashion world hasn’t finished with her yet. Recently, she
flew to meet Madonna after being handpicked by the singer as the new face of
her clothing range Material Girl. “Madonna was funny; she was cracking a lot of
jokes. I love it when women are as powerful as she is. People have been looking
up to her for 30 years.”
The only drawback to being so in demand?
She’s craving a bit of family time. “I don’t get to see them so much at the
moment, or my boyfriend. It’d be nice to have u bit of time with him too, just
do something ordinary, like go out for dinner.”
She’s heading back to London soon for a
party at her brother James’s, who’s in the same band as her boyfriend. She
seems very close to her family and perhaps it’s this closeness that helps keep
her so grounded. She might have initially been reluctant to follow in her
photogenic mother’s footsteps, hut these days, she’s a valuable source of
advice. “My mum says it’s important to have fun and not take yourself too
seriously. A lot of people seem to forget that,” she pauses. “But fashion
really is about having fun.”
Georgia is the face of Hudson
