[This article was first published in the AW18 issue of GLAMOUR magazine]
After turning her biggest insecurity, her lips, into a billion-dollar company, Kylie Jenner, 21, is more than just a business woman. She’s a social-media queen and a cool mum, smashing one beauty record at a time. Josh Newis-Smith checks into her hotel suite.
“Pregnancy completely changed my body at a super-young age,” Kylie confides to me one-on-one, cross-legged on a bed in LA’s Chateau Marmont, referring to the birth of her daughter Stormi Webster. “But I really don’t care.” Welcome to the world of Kylie Jenner; where insecurities are turned into power and sensational levels of scrutiny are shrugged off. “So many negative things come at me all the time,” she concedes. “Of course, it does affect me, but you develop a thick skin. Nothing has lasted so long that I haven’t gotten through it, so whenever a new bad story or rumour emerges, I know it will pass, too. Everything in life is transient.”
Just as the world hangs off her every make-up application, I’m entranced by her every word. Serving girl-pal warmth, empowerment and attention, what strikes me most about this beauty icon – back at work on our GLAMOUR shoot after just a few months of maternity leave – is her sense of, dare I say it, normality. She turned up without fanfare, bang-on-time, wearing a simple white tee and jeans, no make-up, just a post-pregnancy glow. Kris Jenner’s arrival, however, was of killing-it Kardashian proportions: dressed in a monochrome two-piece emblazoned with Fendi logos, with larger-than-life mom-ager sunglasses and, of course, the iconic ‘Kris cut’ that single-handedly relaunched the pixie ‘do. But that’s exactly the type of cheerleader outfit you’d expect when your family are your “biggest supporters”, which is how Kylie warmly describes her “grounding” crew.
Back on our king-sized cloud, Kylie bounces animatedly through our interview, and the surprises continue as her phone lies completely abandoned. Yes, the same Kylie who’s reaped 112 million Instagram followers – and counting – has mastered the now rare art of being present. “As soon as I’m in a meeting, I put my phone down and you can’t reach me for up to eight hours. My brain hurts by the end of it, but I’m passionate about my work and give it my full attention when I’m in the zone.”
It’s endearing to think that this ambitious, badass business woman was once a nine year old making her first tentative appearance on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. But after navigating those tricky teenage years in the public eye, Kylie emerged from the show with a level of fame that makes her arguably the most prominent face of our social-media age. And while she might be blasé about her global impact – refreshingly remarking, “I know in the back of my mind I am not ‘normal’, but I never live my life thinking I am not,” – not only does she make social-media platforms, she can break them, too. In February, she asked her 25.2 million Twitter followers, “Does anyone else not open Snapchat any more? Or is it just me…” – and casually wiped around £1billion off the company’s stock-market value overnight.
Despite her online influence, a clothing line with sister Kendall and lucrative endorsements, including a new ambassadorship for Adidas Originals (in a campaign aptly themed around fearless females), it was actually a real-life hang-up that led to her biggest success: Kylie Cosmetics.
“I was really insecure about my lips,” she says. But the products she was using to create a plumper pout didn’t tick her make-up box. So, using only her own money and platforms for marketing, Kylie poured over the formulas of 15,000 nude, pink and brown lip products – and in November 2015, brought out her first Kylie Lip Kit. “We sold out on my site in, like, three seconds – before I could refresh the page,” she beams proudly, with boardroom prowess. Then, in February 2016, Kylie Cosmetics was born.
Her legions of fans, along with beauty vloggers and journalists worldwide, praised the brand’s ability to produce on-trend colours at Insta-speed, via a factory that worked 24/7 to keep
up with demand. Now, boasting family collaborations with her mum, and sisters Kim, Kourtney and Khloé, what started out as Kylie’s biggest insecurity is imminently set to become a billion-dollar company. After amassing $800million worth of sales in less than three years, Kylie’s net worth is now an estimated $900million. To put this into jaw-dropping perspective, in another year (according to Forbes), this will make Kylie the youngest self-made billionaire EVER, eclipsing Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg who achieved the feat at 23 years old. Queen. (*Three months after printing this interview in our AW18 issue, Kylie exceeded expectations and was announced as the youngest self-made billionaire in March 2019).
Being classed as a modern-day beauty icon suits Kylie as well as her signature red lipstick, but it still doesn’t register with the woman herself. Blushing, she simply says, “It’s flattering, but I am not reaching for it – it doesn’t feel like a real thing to me!” There perhaps lies, behind the pixels, her billion-dollar success: she
is always just authentically Kylie.
Money-making lips aside – back firmly in reality – it is clear that everything in Kylie’s life revolves around her new family: boyfriend Travis Scott, and seven-month-old Stormi. Such was the fanatic interest around Kylie’s secretive pregnancy that Stormi broke Instagram records for ‘likes’ (18 million to date) when she made her digital debut in February. Like mother, like daughter, right?
But since Stormi’s social-media storm, Kylie is nurturing her baby away from the public eye. Having recently removed all images of Stormi from her platforms, Kylie is – and rightly so – safeguarding her daughter from exposure. “I wanted to take a break. I feel very protective over her, she is growing and changing every day.” But rest assured the cuteness is just on pause, “I’d love to share with my fans soon,” Kylie promises.
Kylie Cosmetics is available at kyliecosmetics.com
This article was first published in the AW18 issue of GLAMOUR magazine
