When we look back into the dazzling history of glamour, names like Jackie Onassis and
Audrey Hepburn come to mind; these women defined the aspirational glitz of an era.
Decades from now, chances are we will look to the likes of pop superstar Gwen Stefani.
With her urban meets couture signature style, outrageous aesthetic sensibilities and her
penchant for creating sensational images, she is at the very cutting edge of the millennial
glamour Zeitgeist. So we absolutely had to have her for our glamour issue! Exclusively
for Enigma, in London Kelly Harvey gets glamorous with the one and only Gwen Stefani.
Gwen Stefani never really planned on becoming a global superstar. Nevertheless, the raw materials which make up the style icon and multi-million album selling star we see today were there from the beginning. Just ask anyone in the audience of a concert at Loara High School, when at the tender age of 11, Gwen belted out the song I Have Confidence from The Sound of Music, kitted out in a dress she made herself. Fast forward almost three decades and Gwen has her own L.A.M.B. fashion range and her most recent album The Sweet Escape features several international hits. This blonde bombshell has certainly
found success on her own unique terms. Yet it was a series of tragedies which led to Gwen’s rise to stardom. In 1987, just a year after she joined her brother Eric’s band No
Doubt, their lead singer John Spence took his own life. Having previously played a bit-part as vocalist, the keyboardist’s little sister became the focal point of the band. And it took even more heartache to see the band hit the big time. Gwen had a relationship with the
group’s bassist Tony Kanal, yet when he broke her heart by ending their love affair seven years later. Ironically her anguish inspired a colossal breakthrough for the band, as in 1995 the single Don’t Speak, full of confessional lyrics about the split, set a new record by spending 16 weeks as the most played song on the US Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart. The album it came from, Tragic Kingdom, went on to sell 16 million copies worldwide, propelling
No Doubt from a relatively low key third wave ska band to the second biggest selling act of
1995. That year Gwen also met British rocker Gavin Rossdale, the lead singer of the band
Bush and fell in love with her true love. They have been together ever since, marrying in London in 2002.The ups and downs of their relationship have kept Gwen’s profile
high. In 2004 she and Gavin were rocked by the discovery that he had an illegitimate daughter from a former affair with model Pearl Lowe. The 41-year-old had been made
Daisy Lowe’s godfather after her birth in 1989, but a paternity test almost 15 years later proved he was a lot more than that. At the time Gwen admitted to being “devastated and infuriated”, but their relationship endured and still flourishes.
In May 2006 Gwen gave birth to the couple’s first child, Kingston. And it is her role as a mother, combined with the success of her solo career which now defines her. No Doubt have enjoyed reasonable success in the last 10 years, but it is as a solo star that Gwen has come closest to replicating the success of Tragic Kingdom. Her 2004 solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (L.A.M.B.) saw her tap into the trend for R n’B flavoured pop to the tune of seven million albums sold worldwide. On top of that, the self-designed outfits she sports on the red carpet and in the videos for hit singles such as Rich Girl, Hollaback Girl and Cool, have turned her into a genuine trend-setting fashion icon. That same year Gwen created her own L.A.M.B. fashion label. Such has been success of the range, that it now includes clothes, shoes, handbags and even a fragrance called L. Within a year, some of
Hollywood’s most fashionable stars could be seen walking the streets of Los Angeles in Gwen’s clothes; with Desperate Housewives actress Teri Hatcher and the Oscar-winning
Nicole Kidman among them. Gwen has been known to refer to the fashion label as her
“baby” and admits the triple demands of designing, touring to support her second solo album The Sweet Escape, and motherhood have forced her to become a “super mom”.
So we asked her about what it’s like to be a pop star mother, her desire to have another baby and what it’s like collaborating with some of the biggest names in the music business.
How are you balancing motherhood with music? I thought my schedule before was hard but now my son Kingston just doesn’t sleep. At all. I used to be like a cat about sleeping so now I feel like supermom. I found that nursing gave me super powers and Kingston is a good traveller. He’s been on planes, a helicopter, and a jet – though he’s never going to remember them at this age! When his teeth were coming out, it was the hardest as he was only sleeping two hours at a time. It’s not like you ever get used to the lack of sleep, you just get on with it. So how have you been balancing touring with motherly duties? I actually think that going on tour is a little easier! I used to get stressed just thinking about it, but I have my nanny and then on my days off, I’m still with Kingston. There is a crib for Kingston with his little sleepy-time things on my tour bus. It is pretty adorable. It’s been so crazy with all the time zones and travelling, but once I got going with the tour, I was soon into a rhythm so it was fine.
Do you hope Kingston has inherited your and Gavin’s musical talents?
Oh, I think he has, for sure. He already sings a lot to himself. He does the
whole head-bouncing thing. I’m also passing on my love of fashion. I do
get very excited about what me and my baby are going to wear every day.
I have stylists who bring in things for me that just make me say, ‘I’m dying
to wear that!’ How has Gavin taken to fatherhood? Oh, Gavin is such a good dad. He’s wonderful with him. Kingston still doesn’t sleep through the night, so his dad usually
takes him for an hour or two in the morning so I can sleep. And as soon as
Gavin goes to brush his teeth, Kingston starts crying – it’s hilarious. Kingston is so into his dad right now I even find myself thinking, ‘What about me?’ but obviously I am really happy they’re so close. You claim you never intended to make a second solo album. How
did it happen? It’s weird because I recently had lunch with the rest of No Doubt and we spoke about how my solo career was never meant to go on so long. I was never going to tour. I thought I was over touring after all these years. Yet when you tour, you become aware of the excitement of it. You live it; you share the songs with everyone. I wanted to really do it with my last record and then I did it and found out I was pregnant. I ended up
doing 42 shows but it was so hard. When I was four and half months pregnant, it all went crazy. How did it feel to be on tour when you were pregnant? On that last tour, it felt like I was dying out there; especially first few months of pregnancy, when you feel gross, that PMS feeling. I was getting bigger but I couldn’t tell anyone. The thing that saved me, though, was looking out and seeing girls aged between eight and 16 enjoying their first
concert, singing every track, not just the singles. Looking back at me like
I was Cinderella. It was amazing.
What made you choose to do a follow up instead of a new album
with No Doubt? I was never inspired to do another solo record but this one is so different
from the first. I just wanted to make a dance record at first. But then with the success of it, everything changed. The last record I was very focused and felt inspirational. It was really in my head what I wanted. This one was different. It is so varied and I think the songwriting is more of how I usually write. The last record was so stylised, fun and sugary; this one was about that too, but I was a lot more relaxed making it. It was just a weird
time, being pregnant and then having the baby. But it was a cool thing. I wanted to
write when I was pregnant as I had been so creative already with making a baby!
Did you consider taking a break from music when Kingston was born? I don’t mind not taking a year off. This isn’t going to last forever so I just want to live and enjoy it. I know people might look at me differently – I am the original Catholic girl with all those guilt feelings after all – but he comes everywhere with me. He also makes everyone laugh and
we have so much fun. Everyone he is around says he makes them happy. And how is it when you are apart from Gavin? That’s the worst part, when we are both away from Gavin. Everyone sees it as though I am the only one working but in every marriage you have a degree of separate lives. The good thing is that we’re both on the same team so my success is his success. He has been making his new record. What inspired the title The Sweet Escape for your second solo album? It was a weird journey this album. I had
a direction that I was working towards: this sweet theme. The Sweet Escape came
out of that. I had Kingston under my arm and all the songs came like magic. By the
time I had finished I was going to call the record ‘Candyland’ but I changed it at the
last minute because I wanted to focus on the escape part. These songs are not
meant to be taken seriously – they are fun, silly records that are to be enjoyed.
It’s just silly but there are some amazing songs like Early Winter, Hollaback Girl, Wind It Up, Breakin Up and Orange County Girl. Your fashion label L.A.M.B. is doing well. How important is it compared to your music? Yes L.A.M.B. is really taking off. It’s super important and I have been working on it for five years now. One of the reasons I did it was that I’mnot going to be singing forever. I’ve been designing for a long time but at this level I’m still a baby at it. Every time I design a new collection it’s so exciting. And opening up magazines to see people like Cameron Diaz wearing my designs is so thrilling! At first it was my bags, now it’s other fashion items. It’s something I’m really passionate about and that I can do creatively now. So will we see any more of No Doubt? It feels like there’s always been these things happening in my life since the beginning of No Doubt. Believe it or not there are some people who don’t even know I am in No Doubt. In this small little world we were always this big band so it’s weird now doing stuff on my own. No Doubt is definitely the next thing on my list. They have started working and I am so excited.
They had to start without me which we have never done before. But I
have the tour and I want to have another baby. I just want to make babies
and records. Last time I didn’t plan my pregnancy so who knows for the
next one? As long as it doesn’t happen on the tour because that would be
really hard!
