Model ARIZONA MUSE shows off SS15’s 8 most exciting accessories and talks to ALISON PRATO about her work obsession and next big move.
Arizona Muse is sipping rosé in a quaint Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village, issuing a rundown of her favorite accessories. “I love really soft cashmere beanies. Everyone can pull off a beanie,” the 26-year-old enthuses, picking up the gray William Sharp version she has just removed to illustrate her point. On her wrist is a brown leather Hermès watch, and in her ears are delicate Cartier white-gold diamond drops, understated rather than flashy – just like the model herself. “I’m not a huge spender. These earrings were a bit of a splurge, but I wear them every day,” she justifies.
An unexpectedly entertaining date, Muse’s conversation is free flowing, frank and full of surprises, such as her views on dating: “I learned this from my last boyfriend: I date people who I love, but I don’t like. It’s the weariest thing, and I’m not willing [to do it] anymore. That was the last one. I didn’t even like him. I cared about him, I loved him, but I didn’t like him.” And on getting recognized: “Within [fashion], I’m pretty well known, but then step outside my industry – which is pretty much on any street, anywhere – and no one knows who I am. That’s the great thing about being a model.” Or on social media: “There’s so much pressure to do that and I’m so bad at it. [There’s a ranking on Models.com] based on models’ Instagram followers – I don’t rank very high!”
Born in Tucson, Arizona (hence her name, which she “hated” throughout her childhood), and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Muse moved to LA when she was 18, hoping to become a model. She wasn’t technically discovered; a friend of hers simply suggested it as a career. “I was like, ‘What’s modeling?’” she recalls. “I’d been told that I was pretty by some people, but my parents made a big effort not to [focus on that],” says Muse. “I remember being told, ‘Your inner beauty is so grand.’ I know my mom was really trying to rub that in, so that I would understand what being a good person was about. And I’m really glad she did that – I’m sure it made a difference.”
Given what those in the fashion industry have to say about Muse, it is likely she’s right. Even American Vogue’s hard-to-impress editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, called her “a gorgeous, smart, grown-up”.
“That was so nice,” blushes the model. “I don’t know where it comes from, but I do have a really strong work ethic. To the point where, for a while, I was borderline obsessed with working all the time, and if I had a day off, I felt useless. I don’t feel like that’s the healthiest [way to be] anymore; I wouldn’t want to live my whole career like that. I noticed after a while I wasn’t feeling great, I’d lost track of what it was that I actually liked to do and who I really was, and what my parenting ethics were. I still really believe in working, but I’m much more relaxed about it now.”
Those parenting ethics are important to Muse. Her six-year-old son, Nikko, born before she hit the modeling big time, is currently back at the hotel with one of the model’s good friends. “He’s the best,” she says of her son (and favorite companion), as her phone signals the arrival of a picture message. “Ha! Here he is right now,” she says, beaming as she shows me: an adorable towheaded boy, sitting on the bathroom sink, going to town on his pearly whites with a toothbrush. Muse stares at it for a few moments before setting her phone back down on the table.
“I want there to be another part of life,” she says thoughtfully, back on her work-ethic theme. “The happiest people I know are the ones who find fun in whatever they are doing. They are the ones who are making people laugh, whether they’re working or playing.”
It has been tough, she admits, forging a successful career as a single mother. Models go where the work takes them, racking up air miles into seven figures each year, which is hard to do when you are solely responsible for a child. She and Nikko are about to relocate from London to Brooklyn, where they spent this afternoon viewing a new school.
“One of the big reasons I’m moving back to New York is because leaving Nikko all the time just doesn’t work anymore,” explains Muse. “He struggles, I struggle, and during the times that I don’t travel, I notice how our home life smooths out and everything falls into place again, and that’s so important. It’s not possible to say that I [can’t] travel for work, but I don’t have a second parent to leave my child with. It just doesn’t work. So I really need to live here, and then it’s reasonable for me to say, ‘I live in New York, I want to work as much as possible, but I can’t travel.’”
When Muse gave birth to Nikko (which means ‘victory of the people’ in Greek) in 2007, aged 19, none of her friends had children yet. “It’s not about having a child young, because I do think you can have a child at any age and be ready – people are ready at different times. It’s about having one with [the right] partner,” she says. “If you’re with the right partner and you’re both 19, go for it. If you’re 36 and you’re not with the right partner, don’t. [But] I’m not of the belief that everyone needs to have children; some people are perfectly happy without them. I feel like a lot of men and women get pressured into thinking, ‘What am I doing with my life? I need to have kids now.’”
With that, Muse makes her excuses; she wants to get back to the hotel before Nikko goes to bed. “In London, I get an overwhelming feeling of home, but I feel like I can make that again here,” she says, putting the beanie back on as she prepares to head into the winter night. “It’s exciting.”
