Vogue

COVER STAR

Hoodie (€52) @ Topshop;
swimsuit (€395) by Lisa Marie
Fernandez @ Brown Thomas;

rings, Vogue’s own

STRIKE A POSE

Model, presenter, DJ and
fashion idol; now Vogue
Williams has a book in the
works and a new series about
to air. Life at 30, it seems, has

only just begun.
By Shauna O’Halloran

PHOTOGRAPHY
by BARRY McCALL

STYLING
by CORINA GAFFEY

Choker (€43) by 8 Other
Reasons and Lariat necklace

(€82) by LUV AJ, both @
Jewelcitizens.com; bikini
(€435, part of set) by Lisa
Marie Fernandez @ Brown
Thomas; shorts (€145) by Maje
@ BT2; rings, Vogue’s own

“I LIVE MY LIFE IN PUBLIC...I CAN’T PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT
I WANT TO KEEP PRIVATE AND WHAT I DON’T WANT TO KEEP

PRIVATE OR WHAT I WANT TO SHARE”

T here’s nothing like a man – or the absence of one – to sportswear range and in September, she kicks off her first fitness
define a woman’s career. Even better if there’s been a programme across Ireland at Wicklow’s five-star Powerscourt Hotel.
break up. Jennifer Aniston, Katie Holmes, Vanessa It will have a beauty element to it as well as lots of HIIT training,
Paradis; think of them and you think of their exes. It’s weight training and hiking. The next big news is her book. Not an
very much one of the downsides of being a female in autobiography. “No! [laughs] I’m a bit young to be writing an
the public eye; inevitably, everyone wants to know if you’re in a autobiography, in fairness. A memoir up to 30… ‘what happened
relationship, is it headed towards marriage, will there be kids and in your life?’ ‘Not much!’ No, it’s a lifestyle book.”
eventually, how did you cope with the breakup (if it ends).
It all seems so…obvious. I speculate that ‘not much’ isn’t quite true – in her 30 years she
So, before we get started, here it is: This interview is not about has tried, and mastered, more careers than many do in a lifetime.
Brian McFadden. It’s about Vogue Williams. If that makes you want “I have had a colourful life so far,”she modestly admits.“But there’s
to stop reading, then the sisterhood is doomed. a lot more to come. No, this book is going to be all my recipes,
Still here? Great so, we can move on. beauty, fitness and then how to do your hair, how to pack…loads
Vogue Williams turns up to our shoot driving herself and her of different things that I constantly get asked about anyway. I’m
makeup artist Ashley in a sporty white hatchback. We’re looking really excited because that was actually one of the goals that I wrote
over the sand dunes of Bull Island, Dollymount, at the greying skies down at the start of the year. I don’t like to do resolutions, I like to
and surveying the potential for rain. It may well seem risky booking do goals and that was my main goal, to write a book.”
a shoot on a beach in Ireland in May, but hey, if it’s good enough
for Armani (who shot their 2014 Emporio Armani autumn winter It doesn’t surprise me that Vogue Williams has goals. She is a very
campaign there), it’s good enough for us. Don’t worry, Vogue focused, professional young woman – she arrives early and prepared
reassures me, we’ll be fine – the pictures will be quick, it’s not cold, and although she’s laid back and easy to work with, you can tell
we can duck in if the rain comes. She’s got this. that she hasn’t fallen into any of her chosen professions by chance.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I realise it is me that should Her success, in short, is down to her own hard graft. “I could stop
be reassuring her, but I’ll take it. working tomorrow,” she says candidly. “Someone could just say
It’s easy to assume days like this are a breeze for Vogue. She has ‘we don’t want to do shows with her anymore. We don’t want her
been modelling since her Fade Street days and is well used to being to do any of what she’s doing,’ and it could just go away just like
in front of the camera, with a host of reality TV and presenting gigs that.”It’s a stark reminder of the fickle nature of show business and
under her belt. In person, she is easy, relaxed and confident. But just how right she is to be spinning the number of plates she is.“It makes
recently she has spoken out about anxiety issues, which have plagued it harder for me to have a five-year plan. I hope to just be doing
her throughout her life.“I don’t know if it is ever going to go away,” what I’m doing now because I really enjoy it. And I just hope to
she told me. “I do get it quite a lot. Not every single day but some just be happy. Success in work is great and everything but you’re
days I would get it quite badly.” It seems converse to have such a only truly successful if you’re happy. So that’s all I want to be. God,
thing in your life and yet choose to be in the public eye. “I live my I sound like a cringeball!” She laughs off the sentiment, but I can
life publicly,” she admits. “I can’t pick and choose what I want to tell she means it. Perhaps it’s the personal turmoil of the last 12
keep private and what I don’t want to keep private or what I want months, or perhaps it’s the fact that she turned 30 last October, but
to share so that can really exacerbate it. But, it’s the life that I live, there is definitely a new maturity and assuredness about Vogue since
I love my job and I wouldn’t give it up for anything, so it’s just part our last interview in 2013. And she’s taking it all in her stride.
and parcel of it.”The elephant is in the room, so I ask. Was it hard,
with the breakup, having so much publicity? “I think that by the time you’re 30 you know what you want to
“Yeah, it was but I am stopping to talk about because I literally do, you know who you want to be. I feel really comfortable because
can’t talk about it anymore,”she says – gently, but firmly. She doesn’t I do know what I’m doing and where I’m going. You feel a bit safer
need to explain, but she does. “I work so hard every day and then in your own life, I suppose.”
it’s sort of overshadowed by a relationship that I’m not even in
anymore. It’s not fair on anyone.”It’s been shut down and I’m glad. Alongside writing her book and keeping up some regular editorial
The anxiety, she says, isn’t going away, but there are ways of columns, Vogue is in the midst of filming her new series with RTÉ.
dealing with it.“I’ve cut down my drinking and everything because Building on the success of last year’s Wild Girls series – which saw
obviously it gets so much worse the next day when you drink,” she her experience life as an inmate in the Miami-Dade Prison Bootcamp,
says. She’s also discovered a heightened passion for exercise, fuelled sparred in an MMA ring and going to a swingers party – the new
by the feel-good factor a good workout leaves her with.“I’ve been series sees Vogue delve into equally diverse and dramatic real-life
going to the gym since I’ve been about 15. But recently, the reason stories. And she’s buzzed about it. “Usually there would be parts
I love it is because I’ve learned how to do it properly. I’ve learned when I’m filming where I’m like ‘I don’t think we’ll use that’, but
how to eat properly without ever being hungry; I’m never on a diet everything we’ve done has been amazing.
and [it’s great] to be able to maintain how I look and in the healthiest
way possible. It really has changed my life; it makes me more focused “One episode is on transgender, which has been really interesting.
when I train in the morning and it does help with [anxiety] a lot. I don’t think people are educated about the transgender community.
And she has become quite the inspiration in the fitness arena. They are like everybody else; they’re your sons, your daughters or
Last month, Vogue was announced as the face of Lipsy London’s your friends. Then we’re going to Seattle for another part of the
show which is on trolls and catfishing. We’re meeting a girl in LA
who, when she was 13, was on an internet chat room and she got
talking to a guy who ended up kidnapping her, raping her and
putting it online,” she tells me. “She was lucky she wasn’t killed. It
was terrifying.”

Another episode tackles the issue of addiction – recent media of Bear Grylls: Mission Survive in 2015. In it, she survived
speculation suggested Vogue herself was going to take LSD on
camera to document its effects which she tells me is definitely not Olympian Kelly Holmes, Emilia Fox and English rugby star Mike
the case. But it does look at the raging war on drugs going on in
Ireland today. “My view on it is that the war on drugs is over and Tindall in a 12-day challenge, further proving her mettle. “I’d
that drugs have won.The
scariest part of it was that love a series on UK TV. My show did get sold to TLC but I don’t
people have been telling
me that the worst drug know if I can class that as my goal being filled because it was a
you can do now is
snowblow, which is fake show for Irish TV that
cocaine that you can buy
on the internet.” was bought by UK TV!

It’s far from the usual So I’m hoping to make
fluff you see and hear
from a model-turned- THIS PAGE: Choker a show with one of the
presenter. The Howth (€43) by 8 Other main channels.” And
native is insistent that the inbetween, she is
work she does has Reasons and Lariat casually nailing being a
meaning. “I do have an necklace, (€82) by LUV
association with every AJ, both @ Jewelcitizens.
episode and that’s sort of
where the ideas come com; jacket, (€45), bikini fashion idol on the
from.We’re doing one on
‘addicted to me’ and it’s top (€24) and bikini London scene. That, in
like people that are briefs (€17) all @ River itself, is a near full-time
addicted to exercise and Island; rings, Vogue’s own job.“Yeah, it’s definitely
are addicted to their OPPOSITE PAGE: dress consuming. I spend a lot
bodies.” (€950) by Sportmax @

It feels like a million Brown Thomas of time looking at
light years from the
young Vogue we saw on clothes online because
Fade Street six years ago.
There is so much I’m lucky enough that
substance to her, it’s a
delight to see her stand I’m able to just borrow
alone and be seen – it’s
the first time in 11 years things because you
that she’s been single, she
tells me, and she’s couldn’t actually be
enjoying every minute.
constantly buying new
“I still love DJing,”she
says, referring to her outfits for everything
original ambition.“I still
do it but I don’t get to do you go to. So I’d always
it as much. Making my
TV shows is so personal to me – they’re ideas that I have come up have bags of stuff
with and when you see them on the telly, I have been working on
them a year and a half in advance, it’s such a long process. When upstairs that’s ready to
the last series got such great reviews I cried because I was just so
happy. It’s nice to know that people are enjoying them because I go, ready to wear that
worked so hard. They’re probably what I’m proudest of.”
I’ve been lent by
The next step is to keep establishing her profile in London. Having
lived there for three years, she is fast becoming a well-known face people.”There are more
– the previous series was sold to Discovery’s TLC channel as Vogue
in Prison, Vogue Does the Afterlife, Vogue on Female Fighters and style commitments on
Vogue on Sex and she not only starred in, but won the first series
the horizon, too.

“I’m going to be

announced as the face

of two more companies.

I judge a lot of the races

and I still do a lot of

shoots [modelling]. It’s

always ticking over

when I’m not filming or

writing the book, work

ticks over.”

This, I feel, is Vogue’s

time. She is

unapologetically busy,

looks and feels the picture of health and is realising some of the

biggest goals and challenges she has ever set for herself. At just

turned 30, I would consider this success. Does she? “Do you know

what, I’m quite happy,” she reflects. “I’m really enjoying my

thirties, like, really enjoying them. I was never worried about

turning 30. I have friends, like Matthew [Feeney], who’s my

hairdresser – he’s 23 and God…I still feel like I’m his age.”

“Maybe come back to me when I’m 40,” she throws in. “I’ll

probably be crying into my Cornflakes!”

If the last 10 years of trajectory are anything to go by, I highly

doubt it.

“WHEN THE LAST SERIES GOT SUCH GREAT REVIEWS, I
CRIED BECAUSE I WAS JUST SO HAPPY. IT’S NICE TO

KNOW THAT PEOPLE ARE ENJOYING THEM, BECAUSE I
WORK SO HARD”

PHOTOGRAPHY by Barry McCall
ASSISTED by Dylan Madden
STYLING by Corina Gaffey
HAIR by Carla Rose McQuillan
MAKEUP by Ashley O’Rourke

SHOT ON LOCATION
AT DOLLYMOUNT
With thanks to the Royal Dublin Golf Club

JUNE 2016 IRISH TATLER 63