Style -- 3 hours ago
Words: Zak Maoui
Former Gentleman's Journal cover star Lenny Kravitz doesn’t love to go on camera when he’s doing a Zoom interview. The legendary singer would prefer to go camera off, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less dynamic. When we talk one Tuesday afternoon, the 60 year-old rockstar’s instantly recognisable raspy voice is full of the technicolour and vibrancy you’d expect from him.
Crowned, for another year, the king of YSL Beauty, fronting the new camapign for Y Le Parfum, Kravitz is in the midst of his world tour, Blue Electric Light. Today the enigmatic singer is taking some time out from the tour to discuss some of his favourite things: scent, dressing up and his latest album. Oh, and that viral leather trousers at the gym moment...
Gentleman’s Journal: What’s your relationship with fragrance like?
I think the first time I was really aware of a scent, meaning a perfume, and not the scent of our homes, was with my mother. I would have been about five years old and she used to wear this perfume and there was one in particular that she'd wear when she was going out and getting dressed, and I would remember her getting prepared in the bathroom and then putting on her outfit and then putting on this perfume that she would wear. And she always wore that one scent and it made me feel secure. Through the years it became this smell I associated with my mother that was the first time I was really aware of a smell making me feel good and warm.
Does anyone you know use that scent now?
Actually, no. It was an old school scent. It was an Estée Lauder scent and it came with a blue cap, and after my mum passed somebody sent me a bottle of it after they heard me describing it. I sprayed it and it brought back that whole time for me. It’s funny how music and scent can work, and you can be transported back to a certain time.
What was your first fragrance?
So we’re talking Junior High when the kids started to get their first colognes. It must have been Ralph Lauren Polo. I went to Beverly Hills High School and that was one of the popular ones. The kids were getting it, and I was just sort of following the crowd at that point. I was at an age of trying to fit in.
What’s your favourite smell?
I think it's more when I go to my farm in Brazil or I come to my home in the Bahamas, it's the natural smell of the air, the soil and the trees. There's a particular smell that you smell. I was quite aware of it when I was a kid, especially with the Bahamas. We used to get on the airplane from New York City to come down here as my mother was Bahamian - it wasn't just that we were visiting the Bahamas, it was also home - and when you land in Nassau they didn't have that bridge that would extend to the airplane. You’d walk outside immediately and you’d be hit with the humidity and then hit by the sweet Bahamian air. I’d look forward to that. I was five years old, but I knew this didn’t smell like New York. It was sweet, smelled like the ocean and the air, and just took you away. It was a particular smell that brought a particular feeling and I learned at a young age that there was a relationship between scent and transformation.
Are there any scents you don’t like?
Yes. I don’t like when you go to hotels and they have those intense, toxic, plug-in perfumes. It’s artificial and it’s forced. In most of these hotels you can’t open windows and so I end up crawling under the bed and around the room to find these things and unplug them. They’re just chemical, signature scents of hotels and it’s pumped out. I don’t like artificial things, even fabric conditioners and things like that.
Are you big on taking care of yourself?
Absolutely. It has to be natural and organic. Everything that we clean counters with kitchens, do the laundry with, clean the bathroom floors with is organic.
You’ve always had a strong sense of image - what is your personal style in your own words?
It’s organic to me and who I am. There’s different elements that make that from being very grounded and down to earth to the other end of the spectrum of being fabulous, elegant and elevated. I like to mix all of those things. If you look at the way I'm dressing on stage now, there's elements that are very grounded, like my boots, my jeans and my jackets, but then I'll have on this over the top sort, flashy shirt. I can't go too much in one direction. I have to feel the balance.
Where do you think your sense of style comes from?
I think it starts with my mother and the people that I was around at that time in New York City in the 70s and early 80s. I was around a lot of artists. So whether it was Miles Davis or these actors and people that my mother was around. It was a very vibrant time. It was a very fashionable time. And I just took that all in. A lot of the men that I was around at that time had an air of being flamboyant and expressive with not only their fashion that they wore on their back, but also their interiors and where they lived. And they didn't have to have much money either. These were people that had style. You either have style or you don't, right? And as we all know, money cannot buy style. There's a difference between being stylish and fashionable, right? You can buy fashion, but you can't buy style. So these people, if they had $2 to put together, their apartments looked really cool because they knew how to pull it together. They knew how to take items that were cheap or find things, rehash them and make an environment. It was the same thing with their clothes. I was surrounded by that as a kid.
We can’t talk about style and not mention you wearing leather trousers in the gym…
Well, that’s a real situation as funny as that seems. I train five or six days a week and I work with an incredible trainer. We've worked together for over 20 odd years and when he's available and when I'm available, sometimes we have to jump right at it and that means whatever I'm dressed in, we got to do it. So that was one of those instances. He was in New York and I was in New York. We were both busy and he's like, ‘I can meet you now.’ And I said, ‘okay, I've got the time.’ I ran over there. I was in what I was in and I got to it. I don’t always work out like that, I’m usually in sweats, but I will work out in jeans, boots and leather pants. It doesn't matter. I will get the job done.
How have you prepared for the tour?
My life is about staying healthy, training and keeping my body, mind and spirit where it needs to be. So therefore, when it's time to go, I don't have to say, ‘okay, well, I'm getting ready to go on tour now.’ I am always ready.
Your latest album is extremely upbeat, joyous, and happy. Why did you want it to be like that?
My records are always positive. I’m all about amplifying love and spirit and, sure there's other elements in there - political, social or romantic - but the centre of all my music is love, unity and inclusion. I want to show that we have the ability and the tools to get through this. So that's where I've always been, but don't we need this more than ever right now? That's where I am right now and that's where I think I will remain.
Now read an interview with Nick Wakeman, founder of Studio Nicholson
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