Fierce (32 page)

I
DIDN’T
give a shit about clothes when I was growing up. I wasn’t like the other girls in my class, who would all gather around in the classroom and say dumb stuff like, ‘Oh my God, I want the new Hello Kitty bag.’

You’d be more likely to hear me say, ‘Where are my leggings, my wellies and my fleece so I can go and play in the garden.’

I had a few abstract, girly things like my jumper with bells on that made a tinkling sound when I jumped around. I had the odd pink jumper too, but you could definitely say I was a tomboy throughout my childhood.

My mum always bought our clothes for us. We went to a place called Wendy House near Welders in Beaconsfield. It’s been there since the sixties and Jack and I would go with Mum in the car and pick out the things we liked.

I wore girly things when I had to. I loved my party dresses. I always used to have the best party dresses when I was at school because my mum used to buy them in America so no one else had the same one. They were really frilly and ridiculous. My mum has still got them all. But that was only because it was a special occasion. The rest of the time I couldn’t have cared less about what I wore.

During the summer holidays, I’d wake up at Welders, go to one of the wardrobes that were on the landing outside mine, Jack and Aimee’s bedrooms and pick out my scruffy jeans and a T-shirt. Jack would be doing the same and then we’d head out to the garden. My mum and dad wouldn’t see us until tea-time.

As a kid, I don’t think you should be worrying about wearing the latest designer stuff. Fuck me, you’re going to spend so many of your adult years thinking about clothes and what you should wear that you need to give yourself a break when you’re only seven years old!

W
HEN
we moved to America I was thirteen and I really wanted to fit in. I made my mum take me to the shop Fred Segal so I could buy a new outfit. I bought the baggiest jeans you’ve ever seen in your life, a pair of Vans trainers (they were the coolest thing to have at the time) and a T-shirt. I then bought this stupid wallet that I attached to a chain and I’d have it tucked in my pocket with the chain dangling out. I then insisted my mum buy me a skateboard. I didn’t have a fucking clue how to ride it. Instead, I used to carry it under
my arm everywhere I went because I thought it looked cool. I used to walk down Sunset with this bloody skateboard sitting under my arm – I must have looked such an idiot. But I didn’t care. When we’d first arrived in LA, I’d noticed a lot of kids my age were wearing the same thing, so I wanted to fit in. I really did.

I was permanently hanging around with boys – either Jack, Uncle Tony, my dad or the guys at Ozzfest – and I was really influenced by them. The last thing I wanted to do was rock up at one of my dad’s concerts in some ridiculously frilly dress looking all prissy. They would have spent the whole time taking the piss out of me. I did have this red and white polka dot dress from a store called The Limited in the Beverly Center. That was about as girly as I got in terms of fashion. There was one summer that I lived in that dress. I still have it.

A massive fashion turning-point for me came when I watched the film
Clueless
. It starred Alicia Silverstone and was set in a high school in Beverly Hills. Alicia’s character, Cher, was mega-rich and wore really expensive designer clothes. When it first came out I was only eleven and sort of growing out of my tomboy stage. When we moved to America, I watched it again and it had a major influence on me. Not in the sense that I wanted to wear the clothes she did, but it got me thinking about how what you wear can help you make a statement about how you feel.

When we were filming
The Osbournes
I was going through a typical ‘my life is so bad’ phase. So I experimented with lots of different looks. I was always wanting to show my mum how pissed off I was by wearing the most outrageous thing, like a ripped shirt or a short skirt.
Nearly every time I went out my mum would be screaming at me as I was walking out of the door, ‘Kelly Osbourne, you’re not going out wearing that!’ I never used to listen.

I was dying my hair every colour under the sun. I cringe when I look back at pictures of me from then. Unlike most people, who can shove their embarrassing pictures to the back of a drawer, I am faced with mine every time a magazine wants to do a piece on ‘how Kelly Osbourne was a chubby teenager’. I know I fucking was! I don’t need to be reminded every week.

I once wore this yellow T-shirt saying ‘Young, willing and eager’ with a mini skirt with a bow on the side at an MTV event. I had my hair brushed over my eye and I was giving the finger to the camera. I thought I fucking rocked. I didn’t. God knows what I was thinking.

My mum is a shopaholic – she just can’t stop herself. But she has had a massive influence on my style over the years from just being around her clothes and reading her style books. She’s always bought items from classic designers like Dior, Chanel and Versace. At Welders,
my mum has a room full of clothes from the seventies, eighties and nineties. I’m always going through her rails and borrowing stuff. She has a great blue suit jacket by Versace that I wear all the time. We call it ‘Sharon Osbourne Oxfam’. My mum has always had these great designers in her life and I get a lot of ideas from her.

On rainy afternoons at Welders I used to flick through my mum’s Vidal Sassoon books from the sixties. I used to pick out my favourite hairstyles and the outfits the models were wearing.

I get a lot of my ideas for outfits from watching classic American movies. I think the costumes of actresses like Bette Davis and Doris Day are just amazing. I kind of make a mental note and the next time I’m out, I’ll look for something in a similar style.

I was fifteen the first time I went into the designer Vivienne Westwood’s shop, just off Regent Street in central London. My mum was getting a dress made. I liked Vivienne before I knew exactly what she did. I fell in love with her for the way she looked. She wears what she wants to wear. That day in the shop, as my mum had her fitting, I tried on one of the dresses from the rail and it fitted me perfectly. I thought it looked amazing. Vivienne’s clothes are made for women with a figure and her designs accentuate the hips and waist. But at the same time they have such edge. Over the years, she has lent me so many dresses to wear at premieres and parties. She has fitted me for clothes too, which has always been such a privilege.

When David and Victoria Beckham held their World Cup Party, Full-length and Fabulous, Vivienne came up to me and said, ‘I don’t know who you are, but I think I know your ma.’ I’d met her loads of
times – she’d fitted me for clothes. I thought it was hilarious that she didn’t remember me.

As I’ve got older, I’ve fallen more and more in love with fashion and clothes. Meeting all these designers and them liking me is like a dream come true for me. I think about it all the time. I don’t know how it’s happened.

I was sitting in a restaurant in New York once and the designer Betsey Johnson was having dinner at a neighbouring table. The waiter came over with a message from Betsey written in lipstick on a napkin. It said, ‘Call me, babe.’ I did, and from that day she’s lent me clothes to wear.

I’m so very, very fortunate to have met so many great designers. I never take it for granted. I don’t see myself as a model or a clothes horse, so for a world-renowned designer to want me to wear their clothes is just amazing.

Alexander McQueen has become a really good friend of mine over the years. We met when I first moved to London. There is something so very special about his clothes. Usually, it’s not just a dress. It’s a dress that you put on and it changes colour with your body temperature. Or he’ll design a jacket that, when you take a picture, looks completely different to the naked eye.

In December 2007,I was doing press for my final series of
Project Catwalk
. During one shoot I got an email on my Blackberry from Karl Lagerfeld, who is a designer I’d loved for so many years. He loves photography too and often shoots for magazines. He asked if he could shoot me for the magazine
Purple
. I couldn’t fucking believe that he wanted me to do it. I replied, ‘Hell, yeah.’