With a strong new physique and even stronger attitude, VANESSA PARADIS has gone through a transformation – and that’s not including her ultra-chic short haircut. She talks to CRAIG McLEAN about the importance of independence and her special relationship with Karl Lagerfeld.
Vanessa Paradis, fashionably late and carelessly stylish, strolls into the Parisian apartment where The EDIT team awaits, with her typical, enviable, insouciance. But while her manner is instantly recognizable, the singer and actress, who shot to fame with that irresistible rendition of Joe le Taxi over 26 years ago, is not. Those tumbling curls? That lithe, feminine figure? Gone. Instead, a sharply shorn, hard-bodied pocket powerhouse. Paradis has undergone something of a physical metamorphosis, the kind of transformation that were she a friend you were meeting for drinks, you would spend the evening trying – and failing – not to feel wildly jealous. After a tumultuous period – her 14-year relationship with Johnny Depp officially ended in 2012 – Paradis has clearly emerged stronger and infinitely sexier.
As soon as she opens her mouth, though, flashing that iconic dental diastema, it is apparent that this is still very much an adorable, unspoilt girl (she may be 41, but Paradis appears eternally youthful), entirely free of pretension. Take, for example, the crushed-velvet Ann Demeulemeester frock coat that she is wearing. “I got this 20 years ago,” she says of the battered, midnight-blue old faithful, grinning proudly. “It used to be black… And it has big pockets, full of things!” she adds, rummaging around for her rolling tobacco and liquorice cigarette papers.
The rest of her ensemble is as you would expect from a rolls-her-own kind of woman. Old gray suede boots, vintage corduroys, a cap atop her newly cropped hair. Ah yes, the hair. Paradis offers the explanation that she has just returned from making a short film in Brazil with actor/director John Turturro. It is their second movie together following the upcoming Fading Gigolo, in which Paradis plays a Hasidic Jewish widow.
“We thought it would be funny to go from the Hasidic widow, with the wig, super-clean, to my hair being…” she tails off, tugging at her untamed curls. “It’s growing now,” she smiles, “kinda wild and stuff. And my hair needed it. So I was like, sure, I’ll cut my hair!”
It’s certainly an eye-catching statement, and arguably the fresh start Paradis wanted, as rumors grow that her ex is now engaged to actress Amber Heard.
Not that Paradis would comment on such a thing – she kept quiet about her love life while dating one of the world’s most famous men and she’s not about to become loose-lipped now that they have split. But she is certainly not sitting around moping: in fact, she is more focused than ever. Aside from shooting movies with Turturro, she is busy touring with her sixth studio album, Love Songs, as well as keeping up a bi- continental life for her family. Lily-Rose, 15, and Jack, 12, her two children with Depp, are at school in Los Angeles, leading Paradis to flit happily (“It’s OK – jetlag has no effect on me anymore!”) between the city of her birth and the City of Angels. When you are as busy as she is, the enforced isolation of long-haul is a blessing. “Twelve hours of no text, no emails, no nothing,” she almost sighs with pleasure. “You know, I have no place to complain – it’s a great life. And when it’s difficult,” she says gracefully, “you try to make the best out of it.”
A lifetime of acclimatizing to the pragmatism required around celebrity, especially a celebrity that embraces music, fashion and film, squared by Depp being one of the most fêted actors on the planet, has taught Paradis the value of true friends. “LA has really great opportunities for [my kids’] education. I prefer it there than here [in France]. But my heart belongs here. It’s here that I feel at home. I like to see my friends. They’re not friends from school days, but I’ve had them for 20 years. Real friendship doesn’t go anywhere. We’ll have a good meal, all very simple. And I love to walk in the streets of Paris.”
Equally long-term is her other significant relationship: with Chanel. Paradis has worked with Karl Lagerfeld and been an ambassador for the iconic brand for a rare 23 years. “[Karl and I] get along so well; we admire each other and we just like to spend time together. Any time we meet, my eyes and my ears are open to whatever he’s going to say. I really, really love him,” she enthuses.
Right now, Paradis is enjoying the nightly ritual of sharing her music on tour. “Singing’s very physical. You come offstage and you’re sweaty, and a little tired, and you need a few minutes afterwards to get back on your feet,” she says. Such intense activity goes some way to explaining the star’s ultra-toned physique, although a hypothesis that becoming physically stronger may have been a way to feel emotionally stronger doesn’t seem too much of a stretch.
When I last met Paradis, a year ago, I asked her whether she would encourage her daughter Lily-Rose if she said she wanted to be a singer. “You know, she’s got such a busy life being a teenager already. So when the question pops up…” A shrug. “I don’t regret the way it happened for me at all. If I had to do it again, I would do it exactly the same way. But I’m in a different position as a parent. And I’d rather that she learn a job and have time to be a kid. And then, later on… I mean, she already has such a spotlight on her just because of her parents...”
Paradis certainly won’t be playing the pushy mother behind the scenes. It is important, she muses as she sets to work rolling a cigarette, to make your own opportunities, whether you’re a woman in her early forties or a girl in her mid-teens: write your own script, sing your own song. “Yeah! Even if they’re no good! First of all, the more you do it, the better you get. And whatever you’re doing inside,” she says, tapping her chest, “it’s good for the next thing.”
Make your own opportunities, don’t rely on others, take charge of your own life: the new Vanessa Paradis is in great shape, in full control and utterly inspiring. Fading Gigolo is out now.
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