Exclusive: Agyness Deyn Talks About Walking in Wang, Acting, and Her New Web Magazine
Agyness Deyn's return to the runway after taking last season off started out with an unfortunate, if adorable, flop when she toppled over twice wearing seven-inch Burberry heels at Naomi Campbell's Fashion for Relief show to benefit Haiti yesterday. But Deyn is bravely carrying on. She's walking in Alexander Wang today at 5, with more shows on her plate, as well as a burgeoning acting career and a web magazine, the details of which she's announcing to The Cut exclusively.
"This season I was unsure whether I was going to do it. I was like, 'I'll play it by ear,' and I played it by ear and then Mr. Wang called," she said at one of the many parties she's attended this week with dear friend, designer Henry Holland. Deyn had never walked in one of Wang's shows, but she's been a fan for years. "I've always loved his stuff," she said. "He gets a certain kind of girl that kind of feels awkward sometimes getting dressed up. I've bought a few of his dresses in past seasons and I feel really sexy. And other times when I've bought other dresses kind of to be sexy, I feel like I'm trying to be sexy. And he's, like, the loveliest guy. I've kind of fallen in love with him."
Beyond Wang, Deyn was coy about what other shows she'll walk, but said she's going to lots of castings and fittings. "I'm going to take every show as it comes, and, you know, have fun. I feel really grounded and I enjoy it in a different way than I ever have. I turn 27 on Tuesday. Fashion Week was kind of a blur a lot of the time and now it seems a lot clearer."
Case in point, upon falling at the Fashion for Relief show, she gave the crowd a curtsy, and walked off the runway smiling. She explained: "I was on my hands and knees on the runway and I looked up and there was a big man in a suit staring at me and he just put his hands out to me and said, 'TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF!' It was so funny. I couldn't stop laughing when I got backstage." Campbell gave her a hug afterward and told her the fall was "bananas."
Then on the 19th, three days after her birthday, she's screening Mean to Me, the short film she did with the artist Peter McGough and actor Linus Roach from Law & Order, who's also from Deyn's native North Manchester. "It's a bit scary — adrenaline-rush scary. I play a young girl in the thirties who goes a bit schizo," she said. Now she's hungry for more roles: "I'm going to see what happens. I just want to learn and grow and have fun."
But perhaps Deyn's biggest extracurricular activity is the lifestyle web magazine, naag.com, she's starting with her best friend Fiona Byrne, a former editor at NME.com and contributor to New York, Nylon, and other publications. The name is a combination of the last two letters of Byrne's first name and the first two of Deyn's. Deyn explained that the site is meant to be a magazine that just happens to be online, and that she just happens to be involved with: "It's not AgynessDeyn.com." Deyn will act as creative director and Byrne as editor-in-chief. They plan on having original video and photo shoots, with Deyn having a personal presence in both, as well as articles on fashion, beauty, travel, and culture written by their established journalist friends from Teen Vogue, Nylon, NME, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone.
"It's places that we go, things that we buy, products that we use," Byrne explained. "We're writing it for our peers, and we hope people who hang out with us in New York and London will find new stuff to be obsessed with. But we also want girls in Ohio to be able to go on and find stuff, too. The fashion, for example, will be aspirational, but accessible. You will be able to buy this stuff, hopefully, where you are." As Deyn put it, "It's just going to be stuff we think is rad." In terms of tone, Byrne said, "I miss the attitude of Jane. It was funny and it was intimate. You felt like you knew the writers. It was cool, but it wasn't just downtown New York."
The idea came about when Deyn was telling Byrne how she liked to use the web to learn about places she was traveling to. "I kind of think of it as, when I was growing up, my brother used to always come in and say, 'Aggy, you should listen to this CD!' or 'Oh my God, I just went to watch this film! You have to come see it!'" said Deyn. "For young people who aren't living in a city, where some of that stuff isn't accessible, we want to be like, 'You've got to check this out! Do you like it?'"
As they move through this Fashion Week, Deyn and Byrne are gathering content for the site. There may be trips to Paris and Milan in their future, and they're hoping for a launch sometime in April or May. If their plans sound a bit loose, it's because they just managed to buy their domain name and set up a business plan; Deyn is the sole investor. "I just know that if I hadn't had my brother telling me, 'You've got to listen to Stone Roses, they're awesome!'" Deyn concluded, "I'd probably be listening to dance music. Not that that's bad, but he helped me refine my taste to be a certain way, and I'd like to help people get exposed to things in the same way, and then let them decide for themselves."
It's about time!
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