Before I’m accorded the privilege of engaging in conversation with Miranda Kerr, I must agree to a few rules. The Australian supermodel, 33, will speak about her collaboration with the high-end Los Angeles jeans brand Mother — and not much else. Not the British actor Orlando Bloom, her ex-husband (2010-13) and father of her son, Flynn (born in 2011); not her controversially cancelled Victoria’s Secret contract; and certainly not her impending marriage to Evan Spiegel, 26, the co-founder of the messaging app Snapchat and the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. A proposed question about what she has described as her “modern family set-up” (she recently told Vogue that she and Bloom were like brother and sister, and that Flynn adored Bloom’s new partner, Katy Perry) has been politely vetoed.
I’ll admit that between these restrictions and the less-than-ideal interview location — a busy side table at Catch LA, the chichi Hollywood bar where the launch is taking place — I do not have high hopes for a meaningful tête-à-tête. So I’m a little wrong-footed when halfway through our denim-based exchange she asks me what contraceptive methods I use. “Can I just say something?” she says, laughing into her sugar-free margarita. “I feel like I’m talking to my friend . . . and you’re a journalist.” I am, Miranda. That’s absolutely right.
Kerr is so much the girl next door that I initially didn’t pick her out as the one who had made millions from being sexy among all the high-powered LA fashionistas. She dresses like a teenager on a date at a multiplex (black lacy top, sparkly belt, blue Mother jeans, half ponytail) and speaks in a cheerful bricolage of product placement and cosmic wisdom; she’s into crystals and meditates twice a day. It’s only when she stands up that her gazelle legs and impeccable posture give her away as someone with an eight-figure Instagram following, her own cosmetics line (Kora Organics), and contracts with everyone from Wonderbra to H&M. She was number six on Forbes’ highest-paid models list of 2015.
It all begins innocuously. Her entourage parts, I am pushed into her vicinity and wait as she concludes a Snapchat message to Spiegel. So . . . what made you want to work with Mother? “When they approached me and explained the whole charity concept and the design element, I was like, that’s an incredibly great fit for me — no pun intended!” she laughs. The capsule collection, co-designed with Mother’s founders, Tim Kaeding and Lela Becker, involves butterfly motifs and slogans such as “Attitude of Gratitude”. “It just felt right,” she says. “The jeans are called Mother, I’m a mother, and this is about supporting mothers.”
“If I hadn’t had a humidity crib when I was born I would not have survived
She is donating her fee to the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney, whose work with premature babies is close to her heart. She was born six weeks early, at 5lb 3oz. “If I didn’t have a humidity crib, I wouldn’t have survived,” she says. Since my own son was premature and spent his first few days in neonatal intensive care, I compliment her on her choice of charity. And we’re soon comparing notes on childbirth, baby weight, painkillers. Flynn was born at 10lb after a 27-hour labour. “They induced me and I didn’t take any pain medication. I was like, ‘I need everyone in the hospital not to offer me any pain medicine, I want to give birth naturally.’ ” She’s not sure she’d do that again, but does say it was “empowering”. And the moment after?
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“It’s magical. I was so happy to have him out and connect with him and breastfeed him. I was like, ‘Oh my God, how’s he going to get out?’ And then he was out.”
We talk about our children for a while — she’s incredibly sweet about watching her son grow up. “It’s really a blessing,” she says. We establish, among other things, that my son shares a name with one of her dogs and that Flynn loves something called noni juice. What’s noni juice? “It’s the key ingredient in my skincare line. It’s a fruit from Tahiti with over 100 vitamins and minerals and it works on a cellular level and I’ve been drinking it since I was 13 years old, so for the last 20 years.”
She seems put out that this fact has eluded me for 20 whole years. She’s launching a skinfood supplement for Kora Organics and promises that there’ll be an “incredible amount” of noni in it. “So you can beautify your skin from the outside and the inside. Healthy skin is beautiful skin. You can’t be unhealthy and have good skin.”
Oh I don’t know. Some of it’s genetics, isn’t it? Kate Moss has never struck me as having the healthiest lifestyle . . . “Have you met Kate Moss recently?” I have not. “Yeah,” she says meaningfully.
Her skincare line is not just a product — it’s her “belief system”, she stresses. “I wanted to create a skincare product that I really wanted and I wanted to make it available to everyone. And I did that and my essence is in there.” So we can put it on our faces. “And you can put my essence over your face! Ha ha ha.”
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Her friends the celebrity stylists Mary-Lou and Chloe Bartoli join us at our table. “Can you tell them apart?” asks Kerr. Everyone laughs at me because I don’t immediately register that they’re twins. “You can tell the difference because M-L is engaged so she’s always rocking this big diamond on her hand,” says Kerr, helpfully. (Apparently the other one once dated someone who once dated one of the Kardashians . . . google it if you’re interested.) “They’re like my best friends,” says Kerr. “They’re total hipsters.”
Does Kerr consider herself a hipster?
“No! I’m not a hipster at all. I’m like a nerd. I LOVE to read books.” (The Bartoli twins float away.)
What was the last book you read?
“I’m reading this book by the Dalai Lama about joy. Joy is my favourite word.” We talk about the joy of children again and as she describes her day with Flynn, she gets a little teary, before turning on me. “Are you going to have another baby?”
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Oh hopefully some day, I say, but not while we’re living in California.
“So what are you using for protection? Are you pulling out or what?”
That’s a very personal question Miranda! She creases up. “I’m interested!”
Erm, we use birth control? “I don’t!” she yelps and begins to laugh.
So are you going to have another baby? “Not yet. Not until after we get married. My partner is very traditional.”
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I am clearly so out of the loop when it comes to millennial sex trends that it takes me a while to grasp her meaning; she appears to be telling me that she and the man she is marrying have never had sex. Hang on, that’s really traditional, I say. She winces.
“We can’t . . . I mean we’re just . . . waiting.”
That’s like the 19th century. Who’d have thought? She nods so dolorously that I feel overcome with pity. “I know!” she cries. You poor thing, I console her, and she bursts into giggles. I begin to grasp why her numerous publicists were so keen to approve my questions beforehand.
She and Spiegel do Snapchat one another almost constantly, which does at least raise the possibility of sext before marriage. “I’m obsessed with Snapchat,” she says. “And by the way, I’d be obsessed with Snapchat whether he was in my life or not. It’s the closest thing to having a conversation with someone in the moment . . . It feels more connected. And people want to connect now more than ever.”
She uses it to communicate with her family in Australia and says that her son adores it. She particularly likes the fact that the messages disappear after a few seconds, leaving no trace of old conversations. “Every day, people are learning and evolving. Why are you going to judge me on things that I posted years ago?” And she certainly prefers it to other platforms.
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“I cannot STAND Facebook,” she volunteers. She is not on Facebook itself, but she does have ten million followers on Instagram, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Instagram recently introduced a range of Snapchat-esque features, which has drawn out her protective streak. “Can they not be innovative? Do they have to steal all of my partner’s ideas? I’m so appalled by that . . . When you directly copy someone, that’s not innovation.” And then a sudden look of panic crosses her face. “Do I get to approve this interview? Crystal!” She admonishes her publicist who long ago drifted out of the conversation. “Oh I don’t even care. It’s a disgrace. How do they sleep at night?”
“I was, like, ‘He’s cute . . . but he’s too young to take seriously’
She impresses on me all of the ways that Snapchat has revolutionised her life. She is “obsessed” with bitmoji, a recent innovation that lets you create personalised cartoon characters to stick on your picture-posts; she announced her engagement to Spiegel by bitmoji in July. And she’s very taken with Spectacles, Snapchat’s new eye-mounted “social camera”, which aims to succeed where Google Glass tanked. “When you’re interacting with your child, you can get all of that first hand without them even being aware that you’re taking a video. My son is really camera-shy, but if I hug him with the glasses I get these really intimate moments.” She stresses that Snapchat is a camera company, a peculiar line since it makes almost all of its revenue from advertising.
“You’re looking at Snapchat’s PR girl right here,” says Crystal, finally tuning into the conversation.
Kerr and Spiegel met in 2014 at a dinner organised by Louis Vuitton in LA. Their seats happened to be next to each other, but despite already being on Snapchat Kerr had no idea who he was. “I was, like, ‘He’s cute . . . but he’s way too young to take anything too seriously.’ ” They spent the whole evening “connecting” but then he abruptly got up and told her that he had a meeting in the morning and had to leave. “I was like, ‘What?’ ”
They exchanged phone calls for a couple of months but then didn’t speak for another couple of months. “It was slow and steady. I was like, ‘Is he even interested?’ But once I let him know I was interested, he was very interested.”
Maybe he assumed you were out of his league? That must happen a lot, I venture.
“You’d have to ask him that,” she replies — but doesn’t take up my suggestion that we Snapchat him right now. She describes him as a “private guy. He’s very mysterious. And he’s very in the moment. And that’s exactly what his brand represents. I couldn’t be more proud of Evan and what he’s achieved. He’s put his heart and soul into something he really believes in.”
And with that, it’s time for her to go and have dinner with her friends. Crystal informs me that I have one more question. What scares you, I ask Kerr. She thinks about this one for a while.
“I try not to live in fear,” she says. “You can either come from fear or love. If you come from love, you’re much more able to give what is true to you. But if you come from fear, you’re limited. And that doesn’t feel good.” It occurs to me that there’s as much wisdom in that as in anything I’ve heard this year.
Miranda Kerr has collaborated on a 12-piece capsule collection with Mother, with proceeds donated to the Royal Hospital for Women Foundation, available now at motherdenim.com