Supermodel Arizona Muse stars on a special collector's cover of ELLE's November Issue. Inside, she talks femininity, fame, and family.
In ELLE UK's November Issue, Arizona Muse tells Kenya Hunt how growing up a tomboy made her a more confident woman.
Arizona opens up about her childhood, admitting that she was a late bloomer. ‘All of my friends were trying to be as tough as the boys. I didn’t wear any nail polish, wouldn’t put on make-up. I was curious about it but it wasn’t cool, which is really strange. I wish that it had been encouraged and fostered, to see what it’s like to be girlie, and to try these really feminine things that are fun and that I really enjoy now.’
She credits motherhood with having got her this far in figuring out who she is. ‘I’ve grown up a lot and become a lot more assertive', she tells ELLE. 'Like, I’m surer about what I want and what I don’t want, and how to say no. I used to say yes to everything and feel resentful later. I was so unclear about what made me happy and what didn’t.’ She adds, 'It doesn’t matter what your job is, or whether it’s your family, you just have to learn to say no and not feel badly about it. And learn that whatever people’s reactions are, that’s their own stuff. If we were all clearer, this world would run so much smoother.’
The supermodel explains that her mother’s first-wave feminist beliefs impacted her developing sense of self. ‘In my group of friends, a lot of our mothers were about 40 when they had us. Those women were in a time when they were still fighting for themselves and for their rights,’ she says. ‘And that needed to happen. But in a way, it kind of degraded femininity because it said, “Oh, the prissy housewife, she’s just letting her husband rule the world.”
The November issue is out now, but catch a glimpse behind the scenes of our ELLE shoot and see what happens when we play word games with Arizona Muse.
Photo credit: Kerry Hallihan
