Date: 7 November 1983
Originally published in: OK! (France)
Written by: Elisabeth Chandet
You adore her, you find her formidable, and your numerous letters prove it to us. Her new album has just been released, ‘Catch as catch can’, and it is already unanimous. But that’s not all. Kim, the beautiful Kim Wilde who understood that her fans were numerous in France, decided to visit us on November 26th. It is in Lyon that she will sing and she gives us all appointments the next day, November 27, in Paris at the Pavillon Baltard. In the meantime, discover her in her privacy and enjoy this exclusive interview to take advantage of all that makes the little secrets of her beauty …
It was in London that we met her. Always as beautiful, always as dazzling, with a freshness, a natural that you could not even suspect if Kim Wilde had spoken to us in all simplicity. Of course, we confessed that you, the readers of OK!, you all wanted to look like her, to have that trendy yet personal look that characterizes her. It was then that Kim Wilde burst out laughing and began to tell the truth.
“I had a lot of fun with what you said to me: I had never seen that I had such an impact on French teenagers, but that they reassure themselves: everything is a matter of age. When I was 14-15 years old, I was looking for … I wanted a great physique and I did not know which one to adopt, so I copied, I copied the stars or the women of the stars and the one that I found the most beautiful. The most seductive was Linda McCartney… Forcibly, at the time the Beatles made a fortune in England. And I was only a shy teenager, folded on myself and not terrible physically.
Imagine me with quilts, dark hair, no makeup at all and crazy desire to appear a woman… a real gag! But I was not made to look like Linda McCartney either. My personality was not yet born and I did not know how to exist at all. Then I understood. My professional evolution, sentimental, necessarily entailed a physical change. I started to sing, to cut my hair, to lighten them slightly and the look that became my look was created little by little. One does not invent one’s personality. It is she who draws herself without being able to do anything about it … “
A permanent improvisation
One of the great qualities of Kim Wilde, precisely, is to let nature do it. Envy, impulse, desire are his great and true guides. It’s not a question of looking at fashion magazines to find out which outfits to wear, nor is it a question of studying the makeup techniques to make a look in scene or in front of the photographers. Kim Wilde enjoys herself with a head and a style.
“Look at me, today there’s only my pair of stockings that I bought in a store. The rest is a bit anything, anything I chose on a whim: the belt belongs to my father, the jacket, the one that almost became for me a second skin, it is that of my brother, as for the dress, it is in a London flea market booth I do not know. If you’re going to have a lot of fun and you do not have a lot of money. It gets great “.
Same thing for hairdressing. Kim Wilde, besides a quarterly visit to her boyfriend Keith, who lives in Knight Bridge and whose job is to cut the hair of beautiful Londoners, has a habit of taking a pair of scissors and working herself in the shape of her hairstyle. “It’s so much more funny, more fanciful,” she admits.
And precisely, fantasy is what Kim prefers. “If you see me with Gary, my boyfriend, you will discover a different side of me. Without makeup, natural, with only a touch of Givenchy on my earlobes, which is enough to seduce him. But on stage, I do the whole package: a very bright foundation, blush, facial powder by Jafra (it is a brand that I adore), red lipset and very dark makeup on the eyes, black mascara, and a multitude of eyeshadows that blur to enlarge my glance. Finally, it amuses me to play thus, to transform myself for the needs of my trade. “
An amazing lifestyle
Kim Wilde is a young woman just like you. She also has problems, especially regarding her weight. “It is terrible, but I am very very greedy and, worse still, very good alive. With all the appointments, the contacts I have, the occasions multiply aperitifs, wine a table, good food… And I’m a big dormant (a minimum of 9 to 10 hours a day), everything benefits me. So I’m starting to pay attention. Without being a crazy sportsman, when I looked at myself in a mirror and discovered that I was getting nervous, that I had a double chin (it was last year), I said to myself that I should do better to put myself to certain exercises. Since then, three times a week, I go to a gym. But do not worry … I force myself! At least it allows me to eat everything I love, reasonably, but it’s all very nice. I love chocolate if you see what I mean … “
Kim Wilde seduced us as she seduced you. Because she resembles us. With her weaknesses, her fragilities which also make her beautiful and charming. Long live a ‘Catch as catch can’ …
