It’s an incredible, nearly inspiring factor, what occurs when Zendaya steps in entrance of a digital camera.
Earlier than visiting the filming of his British Vogue throughout the cowl shoot on the finish of January, I imagined her viewing the entire ordeal with gracious indifference. (The function mannequin in my thoughts was Ingrid Bergman on the 1975 Oscars, dryly telling the viewers after her third profession win that it was “all the time very good to obtain an Oscar.”) Zendaya has, in any case, been working in Hollywood since she was 13; she has been an envoy for Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Tommy Hilfiger, Bulgari and Lancôme; and, at 27, she has already received the Emmy for Excellent Lead Actress in a Drama twice. Absolutely posing for {a magazine} can be, dare I say it, a bit boring for her now? (Really, two magazines: this month she turns into one of many few stars to cowl the British cowl Vogue And Vogue United States concurrently – with two separate shoots and covers, directed by Carlijn Jacobs and Annie Leibovitz respectively.)
However in a nondescript studio in Aubervilliers, a northern suburb of Paris, what I uncover as a substitute is a possessed girl. Continuously leaping and twirling in youthful silhouettes from Vuitton, Erdem, Marni and Wales Bonner, Zendaya is, as they are saying, giving: face, motion, angles, legs. (5 foot ten naked ft, she will get them from her mom, who’s six foot 4 inches tall.) From second to second, she transforms into Veruschka, Twiggy, Naomi, Linda. She even has Linda’s hair: after showing that morning with micro-bangs and straight lengths for Schiaparelli’s spring 2024 high fashion present on the Petit Palais, she now sports activities a swishy little pageboy minimize. The cries of approval – from Jacobs; from Zendaya’s stylist (or “picture architect,” as he places it), Regulation Roach; from his assistant – Darnell (“You look stunning!”) – are out of breath, partly as a result of they’re having bother maintaining.
The scene is fascinating, completely magical… nevertheless it all additionally appears fairly exhausting. It’s work, full cease. Pausing to calm herself, she examines her outcomes fastidiously, scrolling by way of photos of Jacobs on a monitor. (Roach, hovering close by in a bedazzled tracksuit, waist-length braids and a cream knit cap, leans in to confer together with her, whereas Darnell – tall and finely groomed, with giant white enamel and high quality hair and twisted—managing the playlist, dancing to OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”) At these moments, Zendaya may very well be a scientist inspecting slides in a lab: variously figuring out a wierd form she’d created together with her neck, or figuring out that her hair ought to flip again. This method slightly than that, she is devoted, current, fully exact. A professional, in different phrases.
Actually, I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Zendaya warned me about this, the type of creature she transforms when she has her picture taken. The day earlier than the shoot, I used to be taken by his pleasant safety guard, Paul, to an enormous resort suite above the Place de la Concorde, moist that morning by freezing rain. I sit in a room the place, from a small terrace, the Dôme des Invalides and the Eiffel Tower are clearly seen to the south and southwest. Looking by way of my private belongings, I discovered nothing, solely a plastic bag balled up in one of many matching armchairs.
