Little Dutch Girl by Lynn Yaeger
“I don’t need a swing in my room, I need a bloody minibar,” says the model Lara Stone, distending her world-famous lower lip and disparaging with a withering shrug the desperately cool flourishes of the designed-to-death hotel — a converted house of detention — where she is staying in Amsterdam.
We are in a car speeding back to the city from Stone’s childhood home in Mierlo, a sylvan burg about 80 miles south that could be described (in a good way!) as the Massapequa of the Netherlands. We’ve been hanging out with Stone’s parents, Michael and Toos, eating pancakes at a supremely odd ecclesiastically themed pancake house where a looming Virgin Mary stares down at flapjacks as big as personal pan pizzas.
Stone, who has promised to share her impressions of Amsterdam and to chat about what’s so swell — or not — about being Dutch, has spent the morning posing for photos in front of such landmarks as the local windmill, where we are observed by, among other former neighbors, two puzzled people on bikes who are overheard wondering aloud, “Sharon Stone?” and a pair of bored little boys, one of whom is wearing a T-shirt that says, “I Scare My Own Family.”
This anonymity comes as a bit of a surprise — maybe the locals are just discreet? — considering that Stone is one of the highest paid models in the world, with a lucrative Calvin Klein contract. Not to mention that she is a devastating combination of postmodern Brigitte Bardot and quintessential little Dutch girl. Her resemblance to the latter is furthered by her penchant, at least today, for donning a pair of increasingly filthy, yellow plush souvenir clogs, like stuffed animals for the feet, rather than, say, the Givenchy metal-tipped stilettos she wore for the shoot a few minutes ago.
Though she has visited innumerable times, Stone has never actually lived in Amsterdam; she left Mierlo as a teenager to model in Paris. To hear her tell it, it was a mutual parting of the ways. By the time she participated in the Elite Model Look competition in 1999, she was ready to break out: “I was sick of Mierlo. You can only climb the same bloody tree so many times.” (Stone, who can be frank to the point of bluntness, adds that if she weren’t presently the toast of three continents, she might at this very moment be working at a McDonald’s in Eindhoven.)
People visit Amsterdam for any number of reasons: to take in the Rijksmuseum; to marvel at the charming canals; to shop the adorable boutiques lining the “Nine Little Streets.” And then there are the wastrels who come here for other purposes. By her own admission, Stone was an inveterate party girl in her early years — so inveterate that she went into rehab and hasn’t had a drink in two years. Which does not prevent her from describing with enthusiasm some of the more intoxicating delights of the city. She loves the Amstel river boat rides because you can have a drink aboard; Vondelpark because it contains what she says are “some beautiful bars”; and the beaches at Bloemendaal because you can buy a drink right at the shore.
Stone also describes with gusto the town’s infamous marijuana depots, known as coffee shops. “You just buy it and smoke it, and that’s a good idea — why not?” she says. “I used to smoke so much pot when I was living here. That’s why I can’t remember so much! But really, it’s just a plant.” Grass or no grass, Stone isn’t much of a gourmet when the munchies descend, preferring a huge platter of French fries with mayonnaise (apparently she is one of those mythical beasts, a model who eats anything) to the more rarefied culinary efforts of her countrymen. She confesses that her favorite restaurant in town is Febo, where the comestibles are arrayed behind little glass doors, Automat style, a sort of victual version of the red-light district.
And speaking of which, Stone also evinces at least a halting admiration for Amsterdam’s notorious ladies (and sometimes gentlemen) of the evening. “The women are their own bosses!” she says. “They rent their own space, they pay taxes. It’s better than standing on the corner like a crack wh*re. They get more bloody benefits than I do.”
But there are other, more wholesome pleasures that delight Stone. She admits that she loves Marken and Volendam, a pair of tourist-laden fishing villages just outside Amsterdam where you can have your photo taken wearing an old-timey Dutch outfit. “I went last year with my husband” — the British comedian David Walliams — “and he quite liked getting dressed up, too!”
Stone may have loved this silly costume, but she says she doesn’t have the patience for vintage shopping, which is a shame given that Amsterdam teems with wonderful used clothing stores. This disdain does not extend to secondhand jewelry, however. During a break from shooting, she swoops into an antiques shop called Dekker Antiquars on Spiegelgracht and spends $10,000 in what seems like seven minutes for a tiny ring, a pair of Art Nouveau earrings and a Victorian diamond bracelet. “Why not — I am making some money,” says Stone, a master of understatement.
We set up camp for the Amsterdam portion of the shoot in a cafe on Heisteeg street, where the proprietor graciously allows Stone to change into and out of outfits in full view of the patrons, who — can it be the soporific effects of too much beer and reefer? — express a surprising lack of interest in a half-naked model. It’s a highly atmospheric quarter: across a narrow lane, the Coffeeshop de Tweede Kamer sells color-coded pot in test tubes; just next to it, the charming Antiek May offers jewelry and objets de vertu; and across a small square is the Anthenaeum Nieuwscentrum, an international magazine store where intellectual types have been gathering over morning papers for decades.
But Stone isn’t leafing through the latest copy of New Left Review. She’s posing half a mile away, on a bridge over the Amstel, flashing her toothy grin, a voluptuary in pigtails, her feet shod in a pair of stilettos, the yellow fuzzy clogs nowhere to be seen.
ESSENTIALS: AMSTERDAM
Shops
Antiekmarkt de Looier A multidealer center, almost a full block long, offering everything from miniature 19th-century toys to massive vintage furniture. Elandsgracht 111; looier.com.
Capsicum Natuurstoffen Textile store brimming with ikat coverlets and kimonos. Oude Hoogstraat 1; 011-31-20-623-1016; capsicumtextiles.com.
Dekker Antiquars Exquisite vintage jewelry, from Victorian brooches to Art Deco diamond rings. Spiegelgracht 9; 011-31-20-623-8992; dekkerantiquars.com.
Droog Legendary Dutch design, including such hard-to-find items as the Sticky Lamp and the Soft Washbowl. Staalstraat 7b; 011-31-20-523-5059; droog.com.
Eduard Kramer Antique Tiles A huge selection of antique Delft tiles, the perfect portable souvenir. Prinsengracht 807; 011-31-20-626-1116; antique-tileshop.nl.
Episode Specializing in hipster gear from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, intended for customers who don’t remember those decades. Waterlooplein 1; 011-31-20-320-3000; episode.eu.
Laura Dols An impressive selection of vintage party dresses, if Queen Beatrix invites you over unexpectedly. Wolvenstraat 7; 011-31-20-624-9066; lauradols.nl.
Hotels
The Conservatorium Hotel Opening this month, with an interior by the Milanese designer Piero Lissoni. Van Baerlestraat 27; conservatoriumhotel.com; doubles from about $355.
The Dylan Amsterdam Small hotel on the Keizersgracht with a superb courtyard. Keizersgracht 384; 011-31-20-530-2010; dylanamsterdam.com; doubles from $504.
De L’Europe The grande dame of Amsterdam hotels, centrally located on the Amstel river, originally opened in 1896 and famed for its collection of paintings by Old Masters. Nieuwe Doelenstraat 2-14; 011-31-20-531-1777; leurope.nl; doubles from $575.
Sights
Volendam and Marken Not only do the inhabitants of the picturesque wooden houses in this pair of fishing villages just outside Amsterdam wear traditional dress, but you can don one of these outfits, too, and have your picture taken for posterity.
