Kim breezes in on the wild side

Sultry songstress Kim Wilde will be strutting sexily across the stage in The Roxy tonight wearing her favourite dress… a raunchy red velvet number which cost £2 in a jumble sale.

The pouting singing star, whose steamy video released with her new single, Say You Really Want Me, has shocked the easily shockable, refuses to take her sex siren label seriously. “Every woman at some point in her life likes to feel she is a sex symbol, whther it’s for her husband or boyfriend”, she says. “You would need to be a bit queer in the head to carry it off and believe in it all the time. In the video, I’m almost taking the rise out of myself. I’m just enjoying being an object of desire. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s just not something you do constantly.”

She insists that the video, which reveals 26-year-old Kim cavorting with four good-looking musclemen in boxer shorts, is not part of a deliberate campaign to push her sexuality.

Swimsuit

“I don’t have a long-term plan”, says Kim. “My image depends on what record I have out at the time and what clothes I find when I go shopping. In the video, I wear jeans and the top half of a Miss Selfridge swimsuit I found before I went on holiday. The dress I wear was borrowed from the wife of a friend.” She also shares the red velvet dress making its TV debut. “I went to a jumble sale with a girlfriend and I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. We’ve both worn it, but it fits me quite well now as I’ve lost a bit of weight. I’m really chuffed – it looks like it cost a fortune.”

After seven years in the music business, Kim Wilde has changed more than her style – though the spiky hair of the “punky upstart” has grown softer and longer. Now she writes some of her own songs – she’s particularly proud of penning the chart hit she shared with Junior, Another Step. But she accepts people are more interested in her looks and love life than her work in the music-room of her London home.

Kim gets solid support from her dad, former rock star Marty Wilde, her mother and business managaer, Joyce, and songwriter brother, Ricky. Kim prefers visiting Europe – particularly France – to America. “I love speaking the language, and enjoy their music and culture”, she says. “The French are so good-humoured and great company.”

She is playing at a free French rock festival in Paris in September. And she has declared herself a fan of Frenchmen – with actor Christopher Lambert topping her list. So far, Kim has resisted attempts to push her into films. But the prospect of starring with the luscious Lambert might just change her mind: “It could, but he is just a fantasy, really.”