The Style: It's Good to be King
Jaime King on her rise from Midwest girl to major model to TV's favorite Alabama debutante. Plus see her fashion shoot, My Life in 3 Looks.
Jaime King walked the Chanel and Alexander McQueen runways, booked the sort of campaigns models kill for and then left it all behind before her 20th birthday to delve head-first into acting. "I had been so lucky to create so many incredible things through the fashion industry, I felt like it was time for me to really take a risk,” King explains of the transition, "At first people were stunned that I would leave at the height of my career, but it was the best decision that I’ve ever made."
Currently starring as sassy Southern blonde Lemon Breeland on the CW’s Hart of Dixie, happily married and a new mom to son James Knight is miles away from a jet-setting teen sharing the Gucci runway with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell—but she hasn’t abandoned a true love for high fashion. King maintains friendships with designers like Jason Wu and Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein, who keep her red carpet ready, and a dedicated troupe of paparazzi regularly document her more laid-back day looks.
The willowy beauty has now forged two enviable careers in highly sought-after professions—it’s all about going heel to toe after what you want, apparently, "I really believe that if you follow your heart and stay in-tune to your intuition, then you really can’t go wrong." Below, hear about King’s major catwalk memories, which fellow actress is her style soul mate and what she did to make dreams come true for some fashion-forward SoHo kids—plus, see her Life in 3 Looks.
Harper’s BAZAAR: What has your experience has been like working on Hart of Dixie?
Jaime King: It’s been one of the best experiences of my life, it’s really kind of an actor’s dream to play an arch of a character for so long and really grow and develop with her. With film, you play one solid arch and then it’s done and you move on to another character, but this is like an ongoing play in which I feel so deeply connected to Lemon and to her journey and everything that she is going through and experiencing—and she’s one of the most fun, intricate, multifaceted characters that I’ve ever been allowed to play, so it’s just really a joy going to work everyday…and to work with people that I love like Rachel Bilson and Scott Porter and Wilson Bethel, you know we’re all very close and it’s really a great family.
HB: What was it like when you first made the transition from modeling to acting?
JK: People thought I was crazy because no one had really successfully done it before. I think Milla Jovovich was one of the only people that had done it and then before that Brooke Shields, but at the time I was at the height of my career, I had so many major contracts and then all of a sudden people were like wait, what are you doing? But I knew that I always wanted to be a filmmaker, an actor, a writer and a director, that was always my plan. It was around the age of 18 when I started to feel like I had learned everything I could learn from being a model—modeling is a really incredible form of expression, but I got into modeling because I loved fashion so much and I really loved photography. It’s really the artist in me that loves the idea of an image and an image that provokes an emotion and then when I became a certain age, that wasn’t enough for me, I wanted to express myself in a more deeper and creative way. And I’ve worked my *** off; I trained with the best teachers, I study really hard, I still to this day coach before every episode—I have a fantastic acting coach. I remember Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio when I first met them a long time ago talking about how important it was to always keep up with the studying of your acting and that’s really where I got the discipline from.
HB: What about modeling helped you prepare for acting?
JK: In so many ways. I mean first of all, the idea of collaborating with a team. The idea that you have a creative director, the designer, you have the stylist, the hair and makeup, the photographer, you have a whole team of people hopefully working toward the same vision—to create and evoke a certain experience or feeling for the audience or for the person that is seeing the editorial or the show, both the big screen and a fashion show. Modeling also gave me a strong discipline of professionalism where you work very long hours. The one glaring issue I have with the modeling industry and the fashion industry is that there is no union for young women and when I went into acting, the way young kids are protected, there must be a mandatory union or regulation, it just has to be done.
HB: It continues to be an issue…
JK: There’s just no protection whatsoever. But that really helped prepare me to understand my responsibilities when you’re hired for a job and so I feel very grateful for that because when I started acting, I had a really strong discipline of knowing that you had to be on time, knowing that you had to work 12 to 16 hours a day, knowing you had to be prepared, knowing you had to be ready, and it’s very interesting because if you’re an artist and you’re creating, you can work very, very long hours but as you’re putting out that love of creation, it’s almost like you’re charged by it, you’re charged by the process of it.
HB: Let’s get down to your personal style. How would you describe it in three words?
JK: Eclectic, ever-evolving and effortless.
HB: Who are your style icons?
JK: I think Marianne Faithfull was genius, Edith Head, there are so many. Obviously Jane Birkin is a classic. Someone like Marie Antoinette, David Bowie, Patty Smith. And Angelica Huston. And Cher as well, I mean Cher was killer.
HB: You must have amassed some amazing pieces, especially when you were modeling. Do you have any archive pieces you’ll never part with?
JK: Its very interesting, you know when I was younger I didn’t realize how important these pieces would be, so after each show, I would give everything away. Like I had these one-of-a-kind boots from every Alexander McQueen collection that I walked for him until I stopped modeling and original Manolos from every Galliano show—all the Miu Miu shoes and the dresses, and beautiful Chanel handbags and coats and just crazy, amazing things that you would never think to give away that I gave away. You know Marc Jacobs’ long, beautifully pleated skirts that I still can't find anything like, and now I think of in agony. You know I would go through my closet and I always felt like every woman deserved high fashion because I came from Omaha (I didn’t have money to buy clothes like that when I was a kid, I didn’t have the access to it, so I would have to shop at the Goodwill) and so what I would do is take all of my high fashion garments and I would go through the closet and anything that I hadn’t worn in three months I would take to the Goodwill on Prince St. in New York because I thought it would be super fun for a young person or any person who didn’t have a lot of money to go through the racks and find a Gucci dress.
HB: Do you have a trademark accessory?
JK: I would say my trademark accessory is a rose-gold and diamond necklace I wear that says ‘James’ for my son, James Knight.
HB: Do you find that your style has changed at all since becoming a mom?
JK: You want to be careful that you don’t wear clothes your baby is going to pull and tug and tear, but at the same time, I find that some women become mothers and stop trying. I feel like I’ve always been on my fashion game, but if anything it has made me feel even more beautiful and sexier becoming a mother. So I always try and keep extra clothes around just in case an incident happens, and an extra layer just in case—but I’m pretty lucky, he’s a good baby. But I definitely don’t wear as many heels. But I’m not a big heel person anyways, I’ll wear them on the red carpet, but I’ve always been the one who loves loafers and brogues.
HB: What is your red carpet philosophy overall?
JK: To always choose something that is the most current and to always choose something that no one else would wear. I’m always the one on the carpet that will be wearing something that nobody else will pick from the collection. I feel like I have some style soul sisters out there, like Diane Kruger and Zoe Saldana, they feel very much kindred spirits when it comes to style. Diane and I typically go for very similar things because we both have a very distinct style.
HB: Do you work with a stylist?
JK: I never had a stylist before I became a mom and now I work with Karla Welch, but even though I work with Karla, she lets me pull my own looks and she collaborates with me, she’s not dressing me. You have so many actresses out there who don’t have the knowledge, the history, or the connections to the designers, and I’m just so used to being able to call up Jason Wu or Francisco [Costa] from Calvin [Klein], or whomever directly and just say ‘Oh I’d really love this look, what do you think about this, and what do you want me to do for my hair and makeup?’ I really try and work very closely with the designers to be as consistent as possible to their vision and for their look because I know how intricate and how much time it takes for them to make it. My mother was a seamstress and I really honor the art of each piece that’s made and so for me it’s all about that.
HB: If you could only wear one designer for the rest of your life, who would it be?
JK: Jason Wu.
HB: What’s your first fashion memory?
JK: There are two that immediately came to mind. One was my first photo shoot for Visionaire—Steven Klein shot me in a bikini and I was 14 years old and it was snowing in Central Park. And then my second fashion memory was Lee [Alexander] McQueen's very first show and he put this skirt on me where your *** cheeks were hanging out, I think they called it like a bumper skirt, but it was like butt cleavage, it was the craziest thing, no one else had done anything like it before. He was rolling tires over girls so they had these tread marks on them, it was like watching a genius in the making. Another big one is my first fashion show, it was Gucci, and I remember all of a sudden I looked up and I was standing in-between Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and they were like the it girls of all the It girls at the time; it was just one of those moments where I was like ‘holy sh*t, my whole life just changed.’
HB: That’s insane. Do you have anything that you would never wear?
JK: Yes, nude high heels in patent leather. They're so bad. I want to throw them out of every building that I see. They drive me crazy. If you want to wear nude, go with suede or a beautiful leather, please, if I see one more nude patent stiletto on the carpet I feel like I’m going to kill somebody [laughs]. It’s just boring, they upset me, it really ruins everything.
HB: Do you have a wardrobe MVP?
JK: I would say my Alexander Wang calf-skinned booties. I wear those a lot. And my James jeans, they’re high-waisted and light blue denim. And then I would say either the Jason Wu Daphne bag, or my Oscar de la Renta olive clutch that I carry around a lot.
HB: What is your approach to shopping?
JK: Quite frankly I’m not a big shopper. I’m very very picky about what it is that I buy, I prefer to buy vintage and then I prefer to be very selective. It's very interesting because I wear the looks from the runway on the red carpet and then I give them back and I feel satisfied by it, by the experience of it. I only buy things that I know I will wear all the time…I just don’t like the idea of disposable fashion.
HB: Your character Lemon’s look on the show is very feminine, Southern belle—has that resonated with you in your personal style?
JK: Well, that was actually inspired by me. The creator of the series saw me and I was doing an homage to Grace Kelly that night and I had this beautiful Reem Acra dress that was all floral chiffon and beautiful and I had a shorter bob done with a modern, '40s vibe and a red lip—very feminine, different than the edginess that I typically have to my style. So she took that picture and said this is what I want Lemon Breeland to look like—so I work very closely with the costume department and we design and custom-make our own dresses.
HB: Do you have any new projects we should know about?
JK: Yes! I have my own baby line coming out which I’m really excited about. I’ve collaborated with a company called Sapling Child out of Australia and its all organic and non-toxic, vegetable-dyed. That will be out in about ten months. And I have Sin City 2 coming out, which is exciting and there are just so many fun things that I’m doing. Life is good.
Anyone know where I could find some?
