MILAN — From her lodge room, Julia Fox may look out the window and see Versace. This was amusing to her.
“As I simply mentioned the phrase ‘Versace,’ I learn ‘Versace,’’’ she mentioned, leaning again in her pebbled leather-based armchair, staring on the building-size billboard a mile away that marked the model’s headquarters.
Inside this room, Ms. Fox was turning into a human-size billboard, carrying a Versace bathrobe and Versace slippers, one hand inside attain of a Versace bedazzled journey cup with an hooked up straw (although she solely actually sipped on her pink disposable vape pen).
She closed her eyes, and a make-up artist named Daniel Kolaric resumed his work. Whereas Ms. Fox sat in her cream-colored chair in her cream-colored room, he was turning her eyelids into two charcoal voids.
He circled and shaded, forming a form far past the boundaries of what is likely to be referred to as, in well mannered society, a “smoky eye.” This darkish, smudged look had change into a signature of Ms. Fox’s round late January, when her attendance at a number of Parisian couture style reveals flooded social media. Whereas posing for images, she would heighten the impact with an alert, barely bulging gaze. Her workforce referred to as it the “Fox eye.”
Now Ms. Fox was at Milan Trend Week, making ready to take a seat within the entrance row at Versace’s style present. The Italian model had put her up on this luxurious lodge, the place she was booked underneath an alias that appeared like a reputation from Previous Hollywood.
Although professionally an actress, Ms. Fox, 32, started enjoying the function of dwelling style commercial earlier this 12 months. Between Dec. 31 and Jan. 6, she had change into the brand new love curiosity and fixation of Kanye West, progressively absorbing the identical sort of hypnotic and polarizing presence as Mr. West himself.
Till Valentine’s Day, when the six-week rocket of strangeness that Ms. Fox rode to worldwide fame ended with affirmation that they’d damaged up.
There are individuals, now, who will sigh deeply after they see Ms. Fox has given one other interview. (Two have been launched the week that information of the breakup broke, although each have been performed earlier than the break up.) However Ms. Fox stays largely unbothered by her critics, she mentioned, or by the caricature she has change into on-line.
“It’s not actual,” she mentioned. “It’s solely taking place on the web. I’m not actively partaking with it. I don’t really feel it. I’m nonetheless 1,000 % me. Nothing’s modified, besides, I’ll say, having been round Kanye was like a crash course on how one can be well-known.”
To get the gory particulars out of the way in which: Ms. Fox mentioned she broke up with Mr. West, nevertheless it was amicable. They’d spent solely about 15 days collectively, she estimated, when factoring in work, household and journey obligations.
“I attempted my greatest to make it work,” she mentioned. “I already had a jam-packed life. How do I match this actually massive character into this already full life? It simply wasn’t sustainable. I misplaced like 15 kilos in that month.”
Have been they unique as a pair? “I don’t assume so,” she mentioned.
Was the connection actual, or faked for publicity? “I imply, there have been positively parts of it that have been actual.”
What concerning the rumor that she had undergone interviews to be his girlfriend? “Ridiculous.” Did she ever signal something, like a nondisclosure settlement? “No.”
Have been they, as Ms. Fox beforehand mentioned on the podcast “Name Her Daddy,” actually referring to one another as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”?
“I don’t assume these phrases ever got here out of my mouth, really,” she mentioned (although they did, on the podcast). “It positively felt like I used to be his girlfriend. However it additionally felt like I used to be being solid within the function of his girlfriend — and he was casting me. He was the orchestrator of all of it. It actually did really feel like a film.”
Is she ever involved that Mr. West may publicly air particulars of their private lives or personal communications on Instagram, as he’s accomplished with different exes, family and friends members?
“I don’t assume that he would wish to open that door with me,” she mentioned. “In case you come for me, I’m going to come back for you. And I’m actually good at coming for individuals. I simply go straight for the jugular. I don’t assume he can be dumb sufficient to do this.”
The reality is, Ms. Fox was able to be well-known a number of years earlier than she began courting Mr. West. She had plans to explode in 2020, with a workforce and technique in place on the time of her breakthrough function in “Uncut Gems” reverse Adam Sandler.
However like lots of people who made plans in late 2019, she felt derailed by the pandemic.
As a substitute, in 2020, she obtained pregnant, giving beginning to a son, Valentino, in 2021. (She and his father are divorced.) One other film, Steven Soderbergh’s “No Sudden Transfer,” was launched in the summertime of 2021, however that function additionally didn’t usher within the profession enhance she’d envisioned.
So, when she obtained along with Mr. West round New Yr’s, “I used to be able to re-enter society,” she mentioned. He helped her do this, and it felt like a reset button on her profession had been pushed. She is taking pictures quite a few new initiatives this 12 months, together with movies directed by Tony Kaye and Tommy Dorfman, she mentioned.
There are nonetheless some shades of bitterness across the breakup, however there’s additionally a variety of gratitude. Ms. Fox credited Mr. West with a few of her new relationships in style. For instance, he helped organize her look at Diesel, one other splashy style present in Milan, earlier within the week.
Finally she mentioned she realized from Mr. West, whom she calls “the final word stunt queen.”
“Have a look at the massive image,” she mentioned. “That was superb for me. The publicity was priceless.”
“However I do assume ultimately I’ll surpass the Kanye narrative. Consider it or not, Kanye’s not essentially the most attention-grabbing factor that’s ever occurred to me.”
‘Dominatrix couture’
There’s one more reason Ms. Fox hasn’t been too distraught over her TMZ information alert-level breakup. Whereas she was in Milan, an in depth pal died of an overdose.
The day after the Versace present, Ms. Fox flew again to New York, first to attend a marriage, then a funeral (for one more pal’s partner), then to choose up her pal’s physique on the morgue.
Although Ms. Fox was born in Milan, about two miles away from the lodge the place she was interviewed, she moved to New York to dwell along with her father round age 6. Her mom stayed in Italy, and Ms. Fox frequently returned to go to, even attending faculty in Como for a time.
Rising up in New York, she spent a variety of time within the East Village, particularly on rowdy St. Marks Place. It was there, when she was 14, that she met one in all her present stylists and greatest buddies, Briana Andalore.
As youngsters, they have been drawn to one another’s blind confidence and readiness to scheme, rip-off and steal. “I might do something to get right into a membership,” mentioned Ms. Andalore, who traveled with Ms. Fox to Milan. “We at all times simply knew what we needed.”
Round this time, Ms. Fox’s private type (“dominatrix couture,” she calls it) started taking form; she labored briefly as a dominatrix at a Manhattan dungeon, she mentioned.
Then, in her early 20s, she and Ms. Andalore began a style line, Franziska Fox, discovering average success with cutouts and cat fits, much like these dominating runways and websites like Trend Nova at this time, they identified. (On the time, Franziska Fox was even offered at Sprint, the clothes retailer as soon as owned by the Kardashians.)
Ms. Fox additionally pursued artwork when she was in her mid-20s, releasing two books of images (each dirty, druggie, emotionally intimate and sexually specific) and exhibiting work made utilizing her personal blood.
This all was a variety of life to dwell earlier than the age of 30 — not that Ms. Fox at all times needed to be dwelling it.
She mentioned that she struggled with drug abuse for years, on and off, however she stopped utilizing drugs and opiates in March 2019. Later that 12 months, when an in depth pal had an overdose, Ms. Fox mentioned she was formally “scared straight.”
Ms. Fox can nonetheless be discovered on the downtown Manhattan social circuit, vaping from one in all two pens (weed or “guava ice” flavored nicotine, since she gave up Newport 100s). However her circumstances have undeniably modified, together with the social standing, job alternatives and attitudes of her inside circle. Her different stylist-friend Peri Rosenzweig couldn’t come to Milan as a result of she’d been requested to assist with Mr. West’s “Donda 2” listening occasion in Miami.
At a raucous ceremonial dinner for Ms. Fox’s thirty second birthday at Lucien within the East Village, Mr. West gave Hermès Birkin luggage to her and 4 buddies, together with Ms. Rosenzweig and Ms. Andalore.
The baggage begin at $10,000, and he picked every variant primarily based on the recipient’s character: Ms. Fox obtained an ostrich leather-based bag in black; Ms. Andalore, who’s considerably guarded and suffers no fools, acquired an indigo bag that seems to alter coloration relying on the sunshine.
However nearly a month later, Ms. Andalore mentioned she hasn’t carried hers but. Ms. Fox carried the Birkin for only a few days earlier than it went again within the field.
“I don’t know if you already know about proudly owning a Birkin while you’re not a wealthy particular person, nevertheless it’s like essentially the most anxiety-inducing factor ever,” Ms. Fox mentioned. “You’re checking on the Birkin, ensuring it’s nonetheless there, that it didn’t magically develop wings. It’s scary to have a Birkin. It’s a variety of strain.”
‘I take it as a praise.’
“The world goes to be gagged,” Ms. Andalore mentioned to Ms. Fox within the lodge room. “Do you’re keen on?”
Ms. Fox’s make-up was now completed, her eyes two vibrant marbles rising from small piles of ash. Her hair had been pulled again right into a slick, tight, excessive ponytail wrapped with “pleasure tape.”
The tape snaked a number of toes past the place Ms. Fox’s hair ended, successfully turning the ponytail right into a whip that dragged barely on the ground. The highest curve of the ponytail felt as stable as a bicycle’s handlebar.
“I by no means heard about pleasure tape,” the hair stylist mentioned, making use of gel with a brush to her scalp.
“It’s additionally referred to as bondage tape,” Ms. Andalore mentioned.
Ms. Fox was operating somewhat behind, which made her anxious. She stripped bare and, with Ms. Andalore’s assist, began pulling on the all-black outfit that Versace had lent her for the night time.
They moved as rapidly as two individuals may whereas wrangling human flesh into a decent latex midi-skirt. The highest of the skirt hit the middle of Ms. Fox’s pelvis, from which two skinny straps prolonged in a large V-shape up round her hips, connecting throughout her decrease again. The matching prime was sleeveless and cropped, with a excessive neck and uneven cutout over the cleavage.
By the point Ms. Fox left the room and descended to the foyer, the place photographers have been seen by way of the lodge’s revolving doorways, Ms. Andalore realized one thing was off.
“One glove, Julia?” she mentioned, considerably exasperated, serving to Ms. Fox into her lacking elbow-length latex glove.
On the trip to the present, the dialog bounced from the metaverse (Ms. Fox could be very excited concerning the metaverse) to a meme on TikTok, extracted from her “Name Her Daddy” interview.
When the host requested Ms. Fox if she would think about herself Mr. West’s muse, she responded: “Yeah! A little bit, perhaps. I imply, I used to be Josh Safdie’s muse when he wrote ‘Uncut Gems.’” However “Uncut Gems” was delivered with deep-fried up-speak, sounding extra like “uncah jahmz” — not less than to the 1000’s of TikTokers who’ve since parodied the second.
Within the van, Ms. Fox tried to recreate it, however couldn’t fairly nail the impression of herself. Her supervisor, Kendall Werts, got here closest.
Ms. Fox finds the TikToks “humorous and hilarious,” she mentioned. “Individuals have informed me that I’ve, like, an A.S.M.R. singsong-y manner of speaking that individuals may get doubtlessly misplaced in a trance listening to, so I take it as a praise.”
Arriving backstage, Ms. Fox was greeted by Donatella Versace, they usually hugged and exchanged phrases in Italian. Ms. Versace was additionally carrying a full latex look, accessorized along with her personal bedazzled journey cup with hooked up straw.