“The worst thing you can do is be seen wearing what someone else is wearing,” says Julia Fox. “That’s where I draw the line.” Fox’s latest hair color is gold with buttery Velvita branding, and she wears it under a ’60s-inspired scarf as she joins me on Zoom. I’m looking discreetly at it.
A few days after she made headlines by debuting her new shades at a Knicks game, nothing much else happened. Later that week, she stepped out to promote her new E! She showed off her “OMG Fashun” by wearing shoes made from blonde hair extensions. It’s hard to imagine a world where this style icon would be twinned with someone else. In an industry that often seems to demand lockstep trends, she’s completely her own playful self.
A destroyer at heart, Fox also takes credit for being a single mother. She takes her 3-year-old son, Valentino, to appearances and live shows, always trying to nurture his creative side. Inspired by Belvita’s approach, she says: “Valentino wanted to dye his hair. So yesterday we dyed his hair green. If a man were at home, he’d probably say, ‘Don’t do that!’ I can just do what I want and not have to worry about my fragile masculinity. We don’t have anything like that at home. we are very free. we do what we want. (Valentino’s father is Fox’s ex-husband Peter Artemyev.)
Who is the right person to host a show that overturns fashion conventions? E’s new competition series! Fox is centered as a muse for an ambitious designer who must create costumes using unconventional materials. “You don’t have to break your bank account to get sober,” Fox says. “You just have to think outside the box a little bit.” To be fair, “a little bit” to Fox might be a big thing to most viewers. Challenges in the show include creating looks entirely out of trash, using sex toys as decorations, and incorporating dried bugs into “fits.”
On the show, the invitees must wow the host and the other judges, including Zendaya’s stylist Law Roach and rotating guests. Ms. Fox worked on the part of the show where she had to eliminate a designer (the winner receives a $10,000 prize) and tried to leave the dirty work to a friend. “I made Law a bad cop. Law would read the situation — he wouldn’t give up!” Fox says with a laugh. “But there were some outfits that were blatantly bad, but then I felt a little better about it.”
She’s an icon, actor, author, podcaster and designer, so hosting a fashion series “feels like a very natural progression,” Fox says. She is known for making ensembles out of her leaves. Or a towel. Or a dry cleaning bag with the shirt still inside. She criticized “fashion proms” (also known as the Met Gala), saying her invitations were based on “politics, privilege, who your parents are and how much money they make.” She says the time is ripe for young artists to explore different ways to indulge. She says, “In a world where fast fashion is actively destroying the planet, it’s important to focus on upcycling.”
Fox seems intent on putting its stamp on almost every aspect of entertainment. She will soon head to New Mexico and a Jordan Peele-produced film and record a single. “The working title is ‘Down the Drain,’ which is also the title of my book,” she explains. “Charli XCX heard about it and invited us to perform at a Boiler Room event. Then word of mouth spread and this company wanted to give us a lot of money to shoot a video. ”Of course she is participating. “I just want to do everything. I don’t want to leave a single box unchecked.”
Foxx has always been in the spotlight, from her upbringing in Italy to her days at Manhattan’s City-as-School High School and the moment that changed everything to her supporting role in the 2019 Safdie Brothers film Uncut Gems. . Playing the salty mistress of Adam Sandler’s shabby Diamond District jeweler character, Foxx stole every scene she was in and earned four Critics Association nominations for her breakthrough performance. That’s when it started to become clear that she wasn’t going to follow the usual strategies for cultivating your image. “We used to fight a lot. [with publicity teams] “Because they wanted me to wear boring clothes – classy, cute clothes,” she says.
In her aforementioned 2023 memoir, Down the Drain, Foxx describes her checkered upbringing and often severe trauma, including drug use, violent boyfriends, mental health issues, and friends lost to overdoses. Causing early adulthood exposed. She writes generously about what she describes as her much-neglected mother, who still lives in Italy, and her abusive father, now a New Yorker. She delved into things like her fleeting romance with Kanye West and chronicled her dominatrix stint as an 18-year-old high school senior. In fact, she praises it as a great training ground for becoming a public figure.
“I don’t think I would be where I am today if I hadn’t become a dominatrix,” she says. “It really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I’d never really been in a female-dominated environment. There’s no other place like that. When you’re there, you’re like, ‘Oh my God. I think, “Oh, I’m powerful.” She still often nods to the SM&M aesthetic, preferring her skin-hugging blacks and dark kohl shadows called “fox eyes.”
However, for Alexa’s shoot, the fashion icon leant towards a more vintage look in sync with her single mother vibe. “I wanted to convey the transition from the 50s, which was very repressive, to the 60s, which was more about self-love and liberation. What I wanted to convey with this story was that there was a man living in this house. But now I’m just living my best life with my son. And I’m not going to raise him to be the nice guy I was at home before.”
Greg Swales
By bringing Valentino to our shoot, Fox aims to push back on the idea that parenting should be separate from work and life. “In America, I feel like it’s all about doing activities for kids,” she says. “When I was growing up in Italy, we used to take our kids with us everywhere we went. Here, parenting is so isolating that it’s like social suicide. That’s what postpartum depression is all about. I think that’s why the rate is so high.”
Mother and son live in a Harlem brownstone with Fox’s model and photographer friend Richie Shazam Khan, Khan’s boyfriend, and… a ghost. “This house originally belonged to her,” Fox explains. He first mentioned his paranormal roommate earlier this year at the Sundance premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Presence, in which he co-stars with Lucy Liu.
“I remember saying to Richie, ‘I think there’s a ghost trying to move us in. Is that weird?'” After moving in, I went down to the basement and saw this place the previous owner had left behind. There was a shrine. All her pictures and trinkets. Since she is still awake, we go down and visit her. ” Valentino also became acquainted with ghosts. Fox reports: “I picked up her picture and said, ‘Was she this woman?'” And he said yes. Now he’s obsessed with ghosts. ”
“If I hadn’t become a dominatrix, I don’t think I would be where I am today.”
julia fox
She has avoided relationships with men for years. She asks if there is anyone who can change her mind. “He has to be an inherently feminist man in the sense that he has to understand that he will never be the center of my world,” she says. “I have a right to love my friends, my kids, and my career. I’ll never get to spend much time with him and he has to accept that. Like, I can’t believe he exists!
Foxx has earned a reputation for candor, as opposed to her often winking fashion statements. “I kind of get tired of being passionate about something,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Everyone’s dead inside. I guess I am too – no shade. But when something is blatantly obvious, I’m going to point it out.”
Last year, she revealed that she had been diagnosed with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and said she has experienced major peaks and troughs in her productivity. But she told me that knowing she’s neurodivergent is incredibly helpful. “Now that I’m educated and diagnosed, I know why I am the way I am,” she says. “I’m definitely on the spectrum. I think that’s a gift.” But despite her fierce public personality, she always felt like she didn’t quite fit in. “I overthink everything. I get anxious. I have low self-esteem because I always feel like an outsider.”
The 34-year-old wants to know how aging affects her. Belvita She loves different hair colors, including curls, but also likes gray. “My grandmother’s hair was white, so I feel like I’m going to have gray hair too. She was so beautiful,” she says. “When I first got gray hair, I was about 24 and still brainwashed. I thought, ‘Oh no, I’m not a fresh flower anymore!'” she says now. She’s not going to race against time. I think she should own it and be proud of it. My best friends are dead, I’m here, and I’m going to take that shit for myself. ”
Editor: Serena French, stylist: Anahita Musabian Photo editor: Jessica HoverTalent booker: Patti Adams Martinez hair: John Novotny uses Davines at Opus Beauty, compensate: Colby Smith, the only agency using Kiki World, Manicure: Mr. Mo Qin of The Wall Group, using Leafgel USA; Fashion assistant: alex block and jenna beck On-set assistant: Megan Powers
