Stefani, loving life, at home and on the road by Marian Lu

Gwen Stefani is no doubtedly back with No Doubt. After taking a five-year break from the ska-band, the 39-year-old singer has found success outside of No Doubt – with a fashion label (L.A.M.B), two hit records and two kids in tow.

But this summer she’s back with the band that launched her, and in its 1990s and early-2000’s heyday, sold more than 27 million records and won 2 grammys.

No Doubt plays the White River Amphitheater in Auburn on Sunday. Stefani talked to the Seattle Times:

What classic No Doubt songs will you play at the show?
We’re just trying to do the songs that make people really happy — the hits. … There’s no way you’re going to walk away and not have fun. We put everything we have into it — all of our love, all of our energy, everything.

As a solo artist, you sold 8 million albums and won a Grammy. Why did you decide to get back together with No Doubt when you had such personal success?
Since we were 17, we had never taken any time for ourselves. It was always band band band band band, because we loved it. … It was an opportunity, a window in time to just do something different. … It was never intended to be so long.

Are you going to do more solo work?
Not that I’m planning on. I feel like I’m in a time of my life where I can’t really make plans. … It’s really about living in the moment, because if you start to look ahead too far, you kind of miss where you’re at. Right now, I’m just so grateful that we’re out here. I can’t even think about writing. I mean, I think about it, and I get excited, because I listen to a lot of music when I put my makeup on. When you’re a mom, you don’t have a lot of spare time. … The whole point of going on tour was to fill myself back up, because I felt really empty after having that baby. It’s just like — wow, I don’t have anything to give, talk about or say. So now, when we go home, the idea is to just go and start writing and do No Doubt records.

There was some criticism — from folks like Margaret Cho — about appropriating Asian-ness. How do you respond to that?
People catch bits of things, so they don’t see the whole picture. But if you go back and listen to the whole song — “Harajuku Girls” — the song is clearly a song about loving a culture and being inspired by a culture. That’s all it is. It’s just being a fan. So, if anybody takes offense, of me publicly saying this culture is amazing, then there’s something wrong with them. It was very positive.

How do you describe yourself?
I just see myself as really busy and really passionate about all the opportunities that have come my way. … Now I have a family, that takes up obviously my No. 1 priority, and I try to make some good kids, you know. That’s the newest, hardest thing I’ve ever done.

How do you balance family life now that you and your husband [Gavin Rossdale] are on separate tours?
He’s actually here right now — he just got in last night. … I think when you have the family involved, you take it to a different level. It’s such a very self-centered lifestyle out here. It’s about just doing everything you can to put on a great show and that takes a lot of energy, emotionally and physically, and so when you have two little humans … and you’re missing your husband, and you’re trying to work it out all the time, and you’re catching me on a day when you’re like, “How’s it going to work?” Some days it doesn’t work and most days, it just works itself out.

Would you want your two kids to be rock stars?
Hell no, they’re not allowed.
No, I want them to be happy. I think the most important thing, the most blessed thing is I get to do what I feel passionate about. I love, love performing. I love being creative. I love designing. Being able to be passionate makes you able to work really hard and just do so many things and just enjoy life. My life is so rich and full because of that, so I hope they find something that they love.

Thanks to Jenny at BSO for posting this and Jillian for the transcription.

Thanks to Lovely Little Lamb on the NDC: Teen Vogue USA currently has a feature on Harajuku Lovers; including HL bags, the HL perfume range.

California dreamer Gwen Stefani has proven that she’s much more than “just a girl in the world.” Here the pop icon, new mom, and fashionista gets real about her baby, her band, and living in a bubble.

It’s Friday night in N.Y.C. when Gwen Stefani enters the conference room at the Ritz-Carlton, where I’ve been waiting for over an hour. There aren’t fireworks or rounds of applause or any big fanfare – actually, it’s not much different than when I entered the room, except that she’s Gwen Stefani and, well, I’m me. Her platinum hair is perfectly coiffed; her eyelashes are thick with mascara. She’s wrapped up in a long black coat that she seems to be getting lost in, and she’s holding her seven-month-old son, Kingston, who is decked out in a L.A.M.B onesie. It’s exactly what I imagined that scene would be like.

She sits down next to me and puts Kingston on the table; he smiles at me and I smile back, tempted to pinch his chubby baby cheeks. Gwen hands him off to his nanny and says she’ll see him in a bit. I feel a pang of guilt knowing I’m the reason for the handoff. She seems tired, leaning her head on her hand as we began to talk. Not surprisingly, she’s just as down-to-earth as she’s said to be. She doesn’t act like a rock star but more like an excited artist inspired by life. She reminds me of my friends.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been almost 20 years since Gwen started her musical career, as a teenager singing backup vocals for her brother’s band in Anaheim, CA. In the years since, she’s succeeded in gaining widespread commercial success fronting No Doubt, as well as receiving numerous awards, but she’ll be the first to tell you, it’s still surreal. In 2002 Gwen married her long-time boyfriend, Gavin Rossdale, singer of British band Bush. A year later, L.A.M.B, Gwen’s clothing label, premiered with a line of bags by LeSportsac. That same year, No Doubt put out The Singles, a best-of record featuring songs from 1992-2003. With the band on a break, Gwen saw her chance to put out a solo record. In 2004, she released Love. Angel. Music. Baby, an ’80’s-inspired dance record. Then in May 2006, she gave birth to her first child, Kingston James McGregor Rossdale. With her second solo record, The Sweet Escape, out now, an upcoming world tour in April 2007, the Gwen Stefani Fashion Dolls, and two clothing lines – L.A.M.B and Harajuku Lovers – this 37 year old is only getting started, providing a bit of fireworks for old fans and new ones along the way.

When I asked one of the hardest working gals in showbiz questions about her life, music, and projects, she replies with well thought-out answers pulled quickly from her “I know exactly what to say” file. It makes me wonder if she’s protecting a secret or just protecting herself. She knows what we want to hear, and she says it. She’s not one to talk trash or start trouble. Gwen Stefani is happy being a good girl with perfect hair and perfect teeth. She doesn’t care what you say and, really, I love her for that.

Since this interview is going to appear in BUST’s “Love” issue, what are you lovin’ these days?
Well, everything I love has to do with that guy that was just in here. It’s really hard to focus on anything else. I really love having him in my life. It’s so insane, ’cause it makes everything so much funner, as you can imagine. Do you have any babies?

No. But I have a niece. She’s six. She’s rad.
I understand that, ’cause I have my niece who’s 11 now. She lived with me from when she was 2 until she was 5. And now, I have a nephew that’s 2 1/2. But when they’re yours and come out of your stomach, it’s really crazy.

Do your niece and nephew get along with Kingston?
Um, everybody’s obsessed with him.

Yeah? [laughs]
Like, we were sitting down at dinner the other night, and my stylist and hairdresser were trying to tell me how much they love him, and my video girl that makes my videos – they’re all, like my best friends – they’re like, “But you don’t understand, I don’t know why I love him so much,” and starting to cry.

Awwww!
And I’m like, “I know, it’s so crazy!” And then we’re all kind of crying about how much we love him. And we don’t really know why. Just that he’s so great. And he has such a great personality.

So, will there be more?
I hope so. You know, I was always worried about how I was going to fit [having babies] in.

Is is hard?
It’s definitely hard, but it’s nothing like I thought it would be. He’s just so chilled out and he goes everywhere with me, and I’m really lucky, because I have a job where I can take him everywhere, and it doesn’t matter. Like, I could have kept him in here with us if I really wanted to, but it would probably be distracting…

[Laughs]
…so, I was, like, I’ll get [the interview] done and then go have my hamburger upstairs with him. But I’m just really lucky, ’cause I can take him everywhere with me, and I have a nanny that can help me. If I had a job where I had to leave him somewhere and then go to work, that would be really hard. I wouldn’t wanna do that.

What do you think is the most important thing to teach him?
You know, I feel like I’m in this mode right now of trying to live in the moment. Gavin and I always wondered about things like, when are we gettin’ married? Where are we gonna live when we get married? If we have kids, where are we gonna raise ‘em? If I have a baby, how will I fit him into my life? But what I’m learning is to not to worry about those things and just let it happen. So, I’m not gonna think right now about what I’m gonna teach my son, I’m just gonna take everyday and love him, and let him have as much fun as he can. You can’t predict the future, but obviously, I also want him to be a good person. I never thought my life would be like this. I always just thought I’d end up being a mom and having kids. I mean, I do worry about “How will my life affect his life?” and I wonder if he’ll look back at me and think, “What a weird mom I had,” you know what I mean? [laughs]

What was growing up like for you?
I had a rad, super, really cool family. My parents met in high school. They fell in love. All they ever wanted was to have four children. And they had four children: two boys, two girls. Catholic. Everything was about us – every project, every weekend, every holiday. So I was really blessed. Also, my parents were really creative; my mom sewed, my dad did music.

So is that how you got into sewing? I know that you used to make your own clothes back when you first started No Doubt…
[I was sewing] before No Doubt, even. Like, my whole life. My mom made my clothes when I was a little girl, so every time we would have something come up, we’d go to the fabric store. We’d pick out the patterns, material, zippers, and buttons.

Does your mom still sew?
Well, she made Kingston one outfit so far. It’s this little outfit she makes for all the grandkids. Like, it’s not a christening outfit, but you know, it’s a cute little white thing.

So your mom’s a role model, obviously.
Oh, yeah. I guess you’d say my mom would be the one person that I look up to. She’s an amazing person.

What does she think of your life? I mean, I guess she’s used to it, by now…
You never get used to it.

Are you used to it?
Oh, no. You never get used to it. You still go, “Woah, this is crazy.”

Right, and you can’t just go like, “Oh, no. We’re out of milk. I’m just gonna run to the store.”
Yeah, it’s gotten kind of weird in that way. But the thing that I’ve been really lucky about is that it’s taken years to get to that. I mean, I started in about ‘87! In the ’80s!

Crazy.
So like, I’ve been doing this forever. And the first nine years, I was just a big fish in a small pond. It wasn’t until I was 26 that we started having commercial success, so it was this gradual kind of thing, over this long period of time. But it has gotten kind of crazy on a different level, recently, with the baby and everything. I mean, I’ve always had paparazzi at my house, but not at that level where they’re there every single day, in lawn chairs waiting for me. It was, like, really to another level.

You have some pretty serious fans. Is it more guys or girls?
I have more of a girl audience, which is really awesome. The one thing that got me through my whole pregnancy tour was seeing those girls from around age 8 to 14 at their first concert. I look out and I see myself in ‘em, and there’s just something about that. I just always have this place in my heart for that age, you know, where you’re just getting into music and you’re getting into your style and defining who you are through what you’re into.

What were you like at that age?
In eighth grade, I was chubby, and my little sister, my brother, and I were just getting into Madness and discovering England, all the ska music – Fishbone, and the Untouchables, and the Specials, the Selector, Bad Manners. My friends and I were into that music, so that defined our group of people. I thought we were really cool ’cause we had that. We knew that we were not part of the popular group, but we didn’t care, because we were into this [music]. I loved that time period. It defined who I was.

I read somewhere that Courtney Love was talking about how you were such a good girl and you have a good-girl image. Is that true? Do you have a bad girl side?
No, I’ve always been pretty much a goody two shoes. I never saw the point of trying to be bad. I want to be a good person. I just like being creative and making things. I don’t wanna be a drug addict. I don’t wanna miss part of my life because I did that.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Well, I’d have to get a definition of it, first. I mean, I’m pro-woman, and I feel like I’m in an exceptionally lucky position being in an all-guy group and being able to do music. And clearly, I work with a lot of women — my video directors, my stylists, my management. Working with L.A.M.B and all the people around me, I definitely have been able to see the power of my position. So I guess I don’t want to say I am a feminist because nobody will ever define it for me.

Do you think women play an important part in rock?
It seems like rock is pretty much nonexistent at the moment and pop and hip-hop have taken over, and in the hip-hop world, I see that it’s been very male-dominated. The pop world is pretty much female-dominated, but it’s embarrassing, you know? I love pop music, and I’m very easily entertained. And I’m not very hypercritical, but there’s a lot of really bland, manufactured, disgusting stuff out there.

Like what?
I’m not going to give you specifics. I’m no good girl if there’s bashing on people.

What do you think about the critics calling your new record “pop fluff?”
They’re exactly right. It’s called The Sweet Escape. That was the idea. I didn’t want this process to be painful. I made [the album] right after I had the baby, and some of it I did when I went down to work with Pharrell, which was like a year ago. When I was doing those songs, there was really no direction; there wasn’t anything so deep, it was just the idea of dance music. Although I did end up writing “Orange County Girl” because I was thinking, “Flying first class into Miami to work with one of the greatest producers of modern times — how the fuck did I get here?” Like how did this happen to me? How can I be so lucky?

Do you write all your own songs?
I’m part of every single song. When I came out with both of these records, I told everybody they weren’t solo records, because they’re collaboration records. What happens is, you go in and they’ll have a track for you, and sometimes there’ll be a hook, meaning a chorus or a melody for a chorus. Most of the time, it’s the words I’m doing on these records. And the idea is to just go in and collaborate. It’s hard on your ego, especially if you’re used to doing the whole thing yourself or with a band. But there’s also something great about being part of collaboration.

This might be shit-talkin’ but I read on a blog somewhere that someone said that Fergie is totally biting your style. Agree? Disagree?
You know, I took Black Eyed Peas on my last tour, and she’s a really nice girl, and if she bit anything off of me, it would be a compliment.

That’s a great answer.
But it’s the truth. I have seen a bit of wake from the last album – of things that happened [that seem to be] inspired by [it] – and it’s a really incredible feeling. It really is inspiring to me, because it makes me move forward. I’m not saying, “She did that and I’m moving on” or anything, I’m just saying that anything that happened after that record is inspiring me to move forward.

How do you handle the critics?
The thing is, I never do anything for anyone but myself. It’s very selfish. I don’t do anything unless I’m completely passionate about it, so what can you do? You put stuff out there, and they’re always gonna say something negative. There’s just no way around it. And, sometimes when they get it so wrong, I’m like “That’s so wrong. That was so not the way I intended for you to see it.”

What about the stuff that Margaret Cho wrote on her blog about the Harajuku Girls being a racist stereotype. How do you not let that hurt you?
It didn’t hurt me. It made me embarrassed for her, because she did not do the research. She’s totally wrong. Basically, if you look at the lyrics of “Harajuku Girls,” all it is is me glorifying a culture and saying how great and how stylish and how much of a fan I am of these girls and how inspired I am. And if you go to my website, HarajukuLovers.com, you can see interviews with all the girls talking about where they came from, who they are. They inspired my entire last album. The whole thing was my fantasy come true. It’s an art project. She embarrassed herself. She needs to go back and do the research before she talks shit.

When you’re at home and it’s just you and your family, what’s home life like?
I don’t have a lot of spare time. Like, if you want a day-in-the-life kind of thing, I’ll wake up with my baby and nurse him. I’m still nursing, so that’s one way that I get to make sure that we’re always together. Then I go and have to work out, which I hate doing, and I do it because it makes me feel good. And then it’s e-mails and we’re just there at the house. There’s never any real free time. I mean, like tonight after this [interview], I’ll go back up to the hotel room and I’ll have my hamburger, and I’ll play with Kingston, and we’ll go to sleep.

Are you gonna take Kingston on tour? Does Gavin go on tour also?
We haven’t fully figured that out yet. I mean, Gavin did go out on the last tour, but it wasn’t for very long. Kingston will probably come out to a lot of it, I’m sure. Gavin is working on a record right now, too. We’re kind of used to being apart from each other. Something kind of makes it good, ’cause when you have time apart, you have time to be yourself and be creative and be selfish, and then when you have time together, you get to be excited about each other. I think it’s kind of a good for the relationship.

Do you ever face temptations when you’re on the road? I mean, do you have groupies?
Oh, you mean all the guys that wanna get with me and wanna marry me? I don’t really have that problem. Never have.

What about Gavin? I’m sure he has groupies.
Well, Gavin’s always gonna be a chick magnet. And I always have to have a gun right in my pocket, just in case. [laughs]

Do you have any crazy stalker fans?
I don’t, really. I’ve been living in a bubble, you know what I mean? I just moved to a new house that has a gate behind a gate, because it was just getting out of control at my other house; you couldn’t really go anywhere. Now that I’m in the new house, my life’s a little more normal again, because I can go places and there’s not 100 cars following me, you know what I mean? It’s not the people that make it weird; it’s the paparazzi that make it weird. It’s nothing that I’m complaining about, ’cause it’s just part of it and it’s not gonna be forever. It’s just a moment, but it’s more normal now that I have more privacy in that house.

Are you living in California?
We have a place in London, too, ’cause when we met, [Gavin] had that place, and we just go back and forth. But mostly we’re in LA, especially since the baby. But you know, I’m really busy most of the time. When I’m not doing music, I’m designing, and I work a lot out of the house. I don’t really go that many places. And I really like it. I really like what I do. Like I said, I usually try to work out every day, and then I have my meetings, and everyone comes to me. So like, you know, they come over, and all the bags that I just designed will be spread all over the house. We fix them, we talk about it, we create the next ones. And the meetings go by like that [snaps], and Kingston will be sitting on my lap. We’re playing and ordering lunch from Jerry’s Deli and everybody’s over and it’s superfun. Next thing you know, four hours have gone by, and then I have to do e-mail.

What do you do to chill?
I like to lie in bed and watch movies and eat. I don’t cook, but Gavin cooks. And we just like that kind of stuff, chilling out like that. Just hanging out and eating and watching TV and playing with the baby.

I remember No Doubt had a Vans shoe. Is there gonna be a Gwen Stefani Vans shoe?
Well, there’s the tennis shoe that L.A.M.B did that are really cool. I just came from the L.A.M.B showroom, and there were big boards up of all the fantasy clothes that I’d ever want, and then you just try to convince everyone on the team that they’re gonna be great, and then we make ‘em. And I’m also developing a fragrance. This is it. See if you can smell it. [holds out wrist]

Ooh, I can.
It’s really amazing to be able to do a fragrance. The creative process has been so fun. Yesterday we had this long meeting with “the nose” – the chemist that develops the fragrance. You smell all these different versions and my friends will come and I’ll be like “Spray this one, spray that one, which one do you like?” This is all day long. You keep trying to get that right smell – “Add a little more of this, add a little more of that.” It’s a weird, creative process.

Cool.
That’s just everything outside of music, which to me is the thing that defines who I am, that really makes me most proud. The other stuff is just fun. It’s creative, but not emotionally draining and exhausting. It’s kind of like making cookies.

With thanks to Jenny Fowler at Beacon-Street.net

Gwen Stefani’s new single, “Wind It Up,” celebrates her lifelong obsession with Maria from ‘The Sound of Music.’ Yet the singer says her latest stylistic muse is Michelle Pfeiffer’s drug-addled bombshell from ‘Scarface.’ As she prepares to release her second solo CD, the new mom talks about the unlikely people, places, and events that have shaped her career, her wardrobe – and her yodeling. By Clark Collis. Photographs by James Dimmock.

These are a few of Gwen Stefani’s favorite things: ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘The Sound of Music,’ and, oh yes, ‘The Sound of Music.’ “I’m like a Trekkie, but for ‘The Sound of Music,’ ” says the No Doubt frontwoman and solo superstar. “The first time I ever went on stage, at a high school talent show, the dress that I wore was the dress that Maria wears when she sings ‘I Have Confidence.’ The drop-waist tweed dress. I had that dress. I made it.”

More than two decades on, the 37-year-old’s enthusiasm for the classic Julie Andrews musical remains undimmed. This morning, perched on a bench in the basement of the Cuckoo nightclub in London, where her ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY cover shoot is to take place, Stefani is thrilled to sing a few lines from “I Have Confidence” should anyone request it (or even if they don’t). Further proof of her fanaticism: Stefani’s new single, “Wind It Up,” finds the singer mimicking Andrew’s yodel from the film’s “The Lonely Goatherd” – albeit over a rhythm track provided by Pharrell Williams’ production team, the Neptunes.

“I was threatening for a while to put The Sound of Music to a beat,” Stefani says. “When I heard ["Wind It Up"] for the first time, I was in tears. I was, like, That is the craziest s— I’ve ever heard! It’s bizarre how the movie has followed my life.” Indeed, the plots are similar: Naive and chatty but well-meaning young Catholic girl – who makes her own clothes! – goes out into the big wide world, where she survives assorted adventures and meets the man of her dreams. Of course, in Stefani’s case, the “assorted adventures” didn’t involve escaping from the Nazis but selling 26 million albums worldwide with a globe-trotting ska-pop band, then 7 million more with her 2004 solo debut, Love.Angel.Music.Baby. And the “man of her dreams” is a British rocker (Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, 39, whom Stefani married in September 2002), not an Austrian naval captain. But both stories do have a happy ending, as is eveidenced in Stefani’s case by the 6-month-old bundle of joy named Kingston James McGregor Rossdale, right now nestled in a Bugaboo across the room from his mommy.

All of which raises the question: Why does the cover of her new CD, The Sweet Escape, find her dressed not as the heroine von Trapp, but in the style of Michelle Pfeiffer’s drugged-out gangster’s moll, Elvira, from Brian De Palma’s blood-drenched 1983 classic, Scarface?

The answer to this conundrum is connected to the clean-living, gym-frequenting, new-mommying Stefani’s obvious delight in being ever-so-slightly naughty. (She repeatedly uses the phrase “coke whore” to describe her newfound fashion muse – and does so with a mischievous smirk.) But, more specifically, the idea came to the singer early last year while shooting the video for her single “Cool” in Lake Como, Italy. Also on hand: Tony Kanal, 36 – No Doubt’s bassist and, many moons previously, a teenage Gwen Renee Stefani’s first boyfriend – and Kanal’s current steady, Erin Lokitch. “She had on this long, peach, polyester dress,” Stefani recalls. “I was looking at her silhouette going, ‘You look so hot.’ It was probably a late-’70s dress, and I started thinking about Michelle Pfeiffer and how amazingly styled she was [in Scarface].”

Needless to say, it is something of a leap from the hills being alive with the sound of music to the restroom stalls being filled with the sound of people hoovering up Bolivian marching powder. “Yeah, I know!” Stefani says, laughing. “I’ve never even done coke, so it’s hilarious. Do you know how many times I’ve said ‘Let’s look like a coke whore’ in the last two months?”

We’re guessing it’s a lot. With The Sweet Escape due for release on Dec. 5, Stefani – who, with Rossdale, has two houses in London and Los Angeles – is in the midst of a feverish, Atlantic-crisscrossing publicity tour. But album promotion is hardly the only thing that has been occupying chunks of Stefani’s diary. She oversees two fashion lines, L.A.M.B, and Harajuku Lovers (which a L.A.M.B source says are on track this year to post a combined $90 million in retail sales), and is preparing for an upcoming world tour, set to start this April. In addition, there’s the much-wanted Kingston to coo over and the much-unwanted 40-odd pounds of baby weight to remove from Stefani’s frame. Judging by her appearance today, the latter mission seems to have been accomplished already.

Or not. “I still have a little bit of, you know, skin or whatever,” says Stefani, lifting up her L.A.M.B sweatsuit top to reveal a stomach that would be regarded, as close-to-flat in any but these most size-0-obsessed times. “If I wasn’t having the record come out there’s no way I would have lost the weight. A year would have gone by [before] I’d be, like, ‘Well, s—, maybe I should start trying to get the weight off now!’ ”

Stefani has come a long way from her baby-fat days as a self-described “lazy” teen in Anaheim, Calif., who was fanatical about Sting and Madness singer Suggs. “At high school I would think, All I want to do is eat and sleep. It wasn’t until I discovered that I could write songs… Because when, I discover things that I’m good at, then I get really passionate and fiery and you can’t slow me down.”

Early last fall, Stefani learned that she was finally going to have her first child – and not even that could get her to ease up. The pregnancy was good news for someone, who like a true Sound of Music fan, has frequently expressed her desire for children. The bad news was that she was about to start her first solo American tour.

“I’d be crying before I was going on,” she recalls. “I couldn’t breathe, because when you’re pregnanct, you get short of breath. So I’m trying to breathe with a corset and high hells and the nine costume changes. I was in pain. I won’t go into detail, but I had really bad stomachaches. What saved me was God put these young girls in the front row; you could tell it was their first concert and that they were looking at me as if I was Cinderella. They just though I was great.”

To hear Stefani tell it, she hadn’t planned on releasing an official solo album – never mind spending the first half of her pregnancy traveling around the country on a tour that, as far as she was concerned, couldn’t end soon enough. Following the last No Doubt tour in 2004, she thought about making a low-key dance album, possibly to be released under the name “GS.” Her boss, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records Jimmy Iovine, talked her out of it.

“I saw the potential for what she could accomplish,” Iovine says. “You have to remember, she’s one of the last rock stars. This isn’t a girl that was put together in a dance studio. She’s toured clubs for 10 years, no different from the Clash. I thought she could make a mark on the culture.”

The mark was the Alpine-mountain-size smash “Hollback Girl.” A late addition to Love.Angel.Music.Baby, it was recorded after Stefani decided the CD lacked a “Don’t f— with me” song. The result was a perfect, pounding meld of the Neptunes’ production wizardry and her feisty ska-rock chick persona, the first single to sell one million difital downloads in the U.S. and the inspiration for a number of, let’s say, “homages” by other artists (think Fergie’s “London Bridge”). In addition to making marching bands hipm Stefani’s song “connected with the clubs and the urban centers,” Iovine says. “It was not unlike Debbie Harry with ‘Rapture.’ With Gwen, the whole fashion thing comes through, so you actually move that cultural needle of how young kids react, feel, dance.”

But not everyone warmed to Stefani’s “whole fashion thing” – in particular, the showcasing of her admiration for Tokyo trendsetters via an entourage of four Japanese women that she called the Harajuku Girls. The Girls silently accompanied her on photo shoots and to public appearances, and subsequently appeared on her tour. Stefani regarded the Girls, all of whom looked as if they had come straight off the streets of the capital city’s hip Harajuku district, as a figment of her imagination brought to life in a culturally positive manner. But last year, Korean-American comedian Margaret Cho publicly decried them as “a minstrel show”.

“She didn’t so her research!” spits Stefani, who says she’s been a fan of Japan and its mix-and-match fashion sense since first visiting the country with No Doubt in the mid-’90s. “The truth is that I basically was saying how great that culture is. It pisses me off that [Cho] would not do the research and then talk out like that. It’s just so embaressing for her. The Harajuku Girls is an art project. It’s fun!” (Cho told EW via e-mail, “I absolutely agree! I didn’t do any research! I realize the Harajuku Girls rule!!! How embaressing for me!!! I was just jealous that I didn’t get to be one… I dance really good!!!”)

Stefani continues: “I was surprised how racist everybody was about them. Especially when I came over here and they’d make all these jokes, like Jonathon Ross.” Ross, a British TV host, asked Stefani whether an “Imaginary hand job” from one of her “imaginary” dancers would count as cheating on his wife. Stefani responds, “Everybody’s making jokes about Japanese girls and the stereotypes. I had no idea [I'd be] walking into that.”

The Harajuku Girls make an encore appearance in the “Wind It Up” video (as von Trapp children of course). Also returning to Stefani’s side for the Sweet Escape project are the Neptunes and Kanal, who helped Stefani pen her favourite song on the record, “Four in the Morning.”

After Kingston’s May 26 birth, Stefani sought out new collaborators, including rapper Akon, producer Sean Garrett (Beyoncé’s B’Day), and Tim Oxley-Smith of the British band Keane. The latter co-wrote a tortured and not un-Keane-like lament called “Early Winter.” “She likes to write from the heart,” Oxley-Smith says. “She’s obviously quite an emotional person. Within 10 minutes of us sitting down, she was crying. I played her a little bit of a thing that I’d been working on just before she came in and she welled up about it.”

Though Stefani made her solo-career mark with the upbeat “Hollback Girl,” it was the melancholic 1996 ballad “Don’t Speak” that took No Doubt from a little ska band to serious platinum recording act and made Stefani a celebrity. Their first No.1 single, “Don’t Speak,” dealt directly with Stefani’s tortured, drawn-out breakup with Kanal. Stefani also got personal on the 2000 No Doubt single “Ex-Girlfriend,” in which she references a brief separation from Rossdale: “I kinda always knew I’d end up your ex-girlfriend.” Given all that, it seems reasonable to ask how much fans should read into the heart-wrenching lyrics to “Early Winter,” the chorus of which finds Stefani singing, “And I always was, always was, one for crying/ Always was one for tears/ No, I never was, never was one for lying/ You lied to me all these years.”

“The lyrics on this album are probably more autobiographical than the last,” she concedes. “A song like ‘Wind It Up’ isn’t about anything. But there are definitely a few relationship songs on there.”

But does Rossdale ever say, Look, if you put this on the album people are going to be thinking, What’s going on here?

“No, of course he doesn’t,” she replies before continuing, hesitantly. “I mean… I think it’s like… It’s vague enough that it’s… And… To be honest, everyone has the same problems. We all have the same problems. And there’s nothing to hide about that. I could have a problem with Gavin at some point in our marriage. I’ve been with him for over 10 years. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just, like, working through it. And good songs are so good at helping you get through things. I think it’s a really good way to put things behind you and document it and move forward. I’m not ever scared to share my situations with people.”

Back at the Cuckoo Club in London, around 20 people have arrived to help with, or observe, the photo shoot. The star of the show, however is sound asleep. We refer, of course, not to Gwen Stefani but to baby Kingston, whose beatific, slumbering, Gavin-favoring face is being inspected with utter devotion by Stefani, her UK-visiting parents, and assorted Rossdale in-laws. (Gavin himself is recording in Los Angeles.)

Stefani admits she too could do with a doze, having wrapped The Sweet Escape just a week before. (In fact, following the shoot, she goes straight to bed and gets under the covers with Kingston.) “I was literally doing vocals and mastering and mixing all at one time” in a race to make the release date, she says. She swears that her fellow No Doubt members were happy about her decision to record a second solo CD, despite the fact that the band hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001. At least they were happy when the plan was for her CD to come out in 2005 – and before she decided to embark on a full world tour in 2007.

“I’m sure they were, like, bummed that I was going on tour,” she says. “But everybody’s busy. It’s not like they’re sitting around going, ‘Where’s Gwen?’ They all have their projects. I need to do the tour to complete my life journey of this whole thing. I felt like I got ripped off on the last tour because I was pregnant. Although I can’t believe I’m going to do it, especially with Kingston.”

Speaking of whom, has Stefani thought about the possibility of a little brother or sister for the nipper? After all, as every good Sound of Music fan knows, there were no fewer that seven von Trapp children. “I really want to have more,” she says with a big smile. “One solo record, two solo records. One baby, two babies. I always want more of everything!”

Becoming Gwen Stefani

So what made her the global megastar she is today apart from The Sound of Music? British ska, the land of the rising sun, and Uncle Walt, of course.

Vivienne Westwood
“The only time I ever spend money on clothes is when I f—in’ spend it on Vivienne Westwood. But I get a discount.”

Disneyland
“Totally an influence. My brother was a huge animation fan, so I had a very cartoon-driven upbringing.”

Madness
“I wouldn’t be sitting here without them. My brother started playing this Madness record ‘Our House,’ and it never came off. That got us into ska. And that’s why we started the band.”

Japan
“I first went there with No Doubt. I love the naive recycling of cultures, the way they suck everything in and make it their own.”

Sting
“The guy is so talented and he’s cute! He was probably the first famous person I ever met. He was really rude to me. Years later I told him the story. He was, like, ‘I was such an a–hole.’ “

Gwen Stefani: The singer, dancer, actress and fashion designer sees children in her near future

Gwen Stefani, 36, is doing a little short of building an empire. After achieving worldwide success with her band, No Doubt, she is making as a big a name for herself as a solo artist with her debut CD, Love. Angel. Music. Baby.

In between recording and performing, she’s found time to launch her own fashion label, L.A.M.B, and forge ahead in her acting career! But Gwen – who is married to Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale – is also starting to gear herself up for an even more demanding role – as a mother.

With your music and your clothing line, do you ever get a chance to relax?
I’ve had a few seconds to myself. It was weird, and I think that I really brought me down. I was like, “Let me go back to work; I don’t know how to deal with this.” I’m trying to live in the moment and really enjoy this wave that I’m riding.

Do you and Gavin get much time together?
For about the last three years we’ve seen a lot of each other. We’re together most days. But in the previous years, because we’ve been together nine years, there was a lot of time apart because we both were touring so much. But we try not to get too far apart or else that’s when all the disasters come! Stay close, hold hands!

What about having kids?
You know, it’s definately on my dream list. One of the big reasons I wanted to do this dance record was because I knew that my passions were going to change soon and I’m to want to have a family. But right now I’m trying to live in the moment and really enjoy this wave that I’m riding. It’s not up to me, is it? If it happens it happens, it’ll happen when… To me it’s such a miracle anyway, that when it’s suppose to happen to me, I guess it will.

Gavin is British – do you spend much time over there?
We spend a lot of time over there. We had a dog there that passed away, and being over here I think has made it easier on us because somehow it just kind of masks it a little bit.

What inspired you to take a break from No Doubt and start a solo career?
When we did the Rock Steady record, that was probably the highlight for me in the sense that we were such great friends at that point. The tour and everything about it was just so fabulous that I pictured a break was the next thing we needed to do. We have never taken a break from each other at that point. So everybody agreed and I had just gotten married. The band were so committed to each other that you kind of don’t even realize it because it’s just up passion. But it was time.

How did you tell the band?
I said to Tony [Kanal], “I really wanna frickin’ make a dance record,” because I heard a Club Nouveau song, “Why You Treat Me So Bad.” I just thought it would be a fun thing to do, and it was very innocent. Like, Tony would be part of it, we would do it in his studio at his house, and it would just be this thing we were going to do. So we started trying it and it turned into this major project where it was like this challenge I had for myself because I never really wrote songs outside of the group.

What does the rest of the band make of your solo project?
Like I said, everybody was very ready to take a break from each other. Tony was so involved in the record that in some ways it didn’t feel like a huge break. It’s almost like it was out of our hands, like we were sent to each other because the idea that we could actually stay together that long is pretty insane, you know? Eighteen Years! I mean, marriages don’t even stay together that long! I never thought the solo record would turn out as good as it did.

Are you surprised your solo album was received so well?
I never thought the solo record would turn out as good as it did, it has so many different styles on it. I think there’s a nice balance of silly stuff on the record. I mean, the whole idea behind it is that it’s a silly dance record, you know? It was based on the whole Harajuku scene in Tokyo and the idea of self-expression through fashion and being unique and individual. I was on a quest. I was like, ” I know, I’m goin to get some Harajuku Girls and I’m going to roll with them everywhere I go.”

What was the significance of the Harajuku Girls?
It was like my fantasy come true. When I first wrote “What You Waiting For?” I’d written a line in the song and it said “I can’t wait to go back and do Osaka,Tokyo, you Harajuku Girls, damn you got the wicked style.” I was giving them a shout-out basically because they’re wicked.

You’ve had such a long working relationship with your band. Was it hard to adapt to working with new people like Pharrel Williams and Andre 3000?
To get out there and write with all these different people was really hard because you to put your ego aside and you have to get out there and open yourself up to not only new people who you respect and you’re a fan of, but also a whole different culture of music as well. So it was a pretty big trip, I have to say. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and my ego had a real problem with it a lot of the time. What really defines me, when I think about myself and what makes me feel good about myself is that I’m lyricist – I write lyrics and I express myself through music, and I write melodies. I don’t know how I’ve ever done it, it’s all a mystery to me, music, like I go, “Wait, how did that song happen?” So the idea of getting in with somebody I don’t know and trying to make that magic happen is kind of risky and intimidating.

But what an amazing experience.
When the magic really did come, it was really unbelievable because the people I was working with were unbelievably inspiring and talented. It was just so amazing after 18 years to get in a room and see how other people do it because no on taught me; it was just instinct and just trial and error. It was really cool to get in the room with Pharrell and go “oh that’s how you do it,” or Dr. Dre and seeing how he does it.

So how did you get into music?
I think what happened was my older brother brought home a Madness record that had one hit, “Our House.” So when we discovered that when we were like 14, 15, that was it! We were in and we thought we had found the coolest thing around. We were really inspired by the whole ska thing, which turned us onto reggae music as well, and then we just said “We’re gonna start a band.” There was nothing else for us to do in Orange County.

Was your family supportive?
My parents were kind of conservative, strict. At the same time they were musicians and I grew up on Bob Dylan. My first concert I went to was Emmylou Harris. So my parents are a little bit of a contradiction because musically they love all kinds of hippie folk groups, but then they’re very Catholic and strict. When we started the band they were very supportive of it being a hobby, but at the same time we were all meant to go to college and be something when we grow up.

You have done so much more than ‘be something’. You did you first fashion show with L.A.M.B this year at New Your Fashion Week. How was that?
It is different whe you know that you’re actually doing a show, you know? It’s a little bit more pressure. I have a whole other accessories line, too. When you put out a record, like with No Doubt, we always have merchandise line. That’s just the way you do it and it’s pretty ordinary.

Where did the name for the L.A.M.B clothing line come from?

I was trying to think of a name and I had a dog, Megan, for 16 years. She was this little stinky dog that I loved so much and I used to call her Lamb. For most of her life she was called Lamb, because she used to follow me everywhere , she was so dependent on me. When she died, I was just trying to think of a name and I call everybody Lamb, like anybody I love, it’s like my pet word. So I just thought it was a good way to kind of let her live on. It’s really hard because it becomes something more that the name it has this whole new life. It just seemed like the right thing and instead of just saying “Lamb,” I wanted each letter to rotate and I would give different names to it, and the first ones I came up with were “Love, Angel, Music, Baby.”

Do you enjoy the process of designing clothes?
The whole design process is something I’ve done my whole life and it fulfils me in the same way as music – you have nothing and then you have something. It’s just a very creative, fulfilling, passionate thing that I like to do. It’s something I’d like to do for the rest of my life and that’s why I started the clothing line. I think that every season it just gets better and better. I still have a lot to learn, though. I’m still totally a baby at it.

So there will be more No Doubt albums?
That’s the plan. I really didn’t know that it would take so long to make Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Then we ended up putting a greatest hits record out and that took up time. We went on tour. It was amazing — we never even thought we would have a greatest hits record out. I never intended for this record to take so long, but I kind of want to ride the wave while it’s out there.

What about acting? You were amazing as Jean Harlow in The Aviator.
I would love to do another movie, like to have a real role – not that that wasn’t – I mean Jean Harlow in a Martin Scorsese movie is not bad! But I would love to do a film. I have something I’m developing right now, but with films there’s so many poeple involved and it costs so much, and there’s so much at risk; I don’t like to talk about it. When it’s coming out, I’ll talk about.

She works hard for the money, and she ain’t no hollaback girl, but now that the world has embraced Gwen Stefani as the platinum bomb, will she ever find a simple kind of life?

The popular television series The OC and Laguna Beach have made Southern California’s Orange County and attitude like, totally rad. They portray the laidback lifestyle of perfectly aligned palm trees, lazy afternoons, and never-ending spring breaks. Meanwhile, the most famous OC girl of them all, Gwen Stefani, is quietly building her empire as the hardest working girl in show business. Last year, we saw her playing Jean Harlow in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, and this year she is high off the phenomenal success of her first solo album – having already achieved worldwide domination as front woman of No Doubt – and summer anthems “Hollaback Girl” and “Cool.” She is also busy spearheading not one but two clothing lines: L.A.M.B (which shares a name with her Love. Angel. Music. Baby. album) and the newly launched Harajuku Lovers.

Her much anticipated runway show for L.A.M.B took place at the Roseland Ballroom during New York fashion week last September and on October 16th she will embark on a major North American tour, also named “Harajuku Lovers,” starting with a sold out performance at the American West Arena in Phoenix. In midst of all this activity on th music, fashion and film fronts, she also finds time to promote other products and services including the HP Photosmart R607 Harajuku Lovers digital camera and the “Hollaback Girl” ringtone, which is available exclusively through Cingular Wireless.

On this particular August afternoon at Quixote Studios in West Hollywood, Gwen Stefani is sitting in a dressing room chair, facing a large mirror while hair stylist Danilo starts crafting a new look for the TRACE cover. Gwen is chatting away, all platinum blondness and sassy sophistication, as stylist Andrea Lieberman and makeup artist Kathy Jeung try to figure out the implications of this new Afro-braided-platinum-punk look. All three are close collaborators of Gwen’s, but now they have experimented with a folded blue scarf holding in the top of her hair, in a subtle nod to the I Love Lucy housewife hysteria from the ’50s, the Afro madness just seems a little more directional. Although Gwen wasn’t feeling it at first, she quickly changes her mind and we all agree to go for the Afro look.

Two of her Harajuku girl dancers are also in attendance. Maya (aka Love), hails from Tokyo, and Mayuko (aka Baby), who is a native of Osaka, but both became Harajuku girls after they auditioned in Los Angeles. I ask where Angel and Music are. No one knows. As she makes her way to the cover set-up where lighting is being tested with Polaroids. Gwen starts rubbing her stomach. “It’s coming,” she says, speaking of her period. This time, her hands aren’t pressed against her bare midriff, as they often are, because her belly is covered by a green Harajuku Lovers t-shirt, but she still tells anyone who cares to listen that she is menstrual, and that her mood isn’t the best it could be.

However, Gwen is open and approachable as ever. We shoot the cover and venture out of the studio to nearby Poinsetta Park for additional pictures. That is where the real Gwen Stefani pop experience is brought to life in a series of casual encounters with Angelenos from all walks of life. Of course we should have suspected that a mid-afternoon outing with a pop star in a public park would cause a bit of a commotion, especially in her home state, and the broad scope of her fan base is a reality that cannot be argued with.

Situation One: A Mexican family in a huge Freightliner delivery truck suddenly stops and idles in the middle of a street, interrupting their work schedule as well as the normal flow of traffic. The wife climbs out of the truck while her eight-year-old daughter stares at the pop star from the front seat, with her father looking on. When the mother returns to the truck with an autograph that reads “To Jackie, Love Gwen,” the daughter starts weeping.
Situation Two: A black man in his early 40s steals a glance at the pop star from the corner of his eye. “Damn!” he says, to no one in particular.
Situation Three: Two LAPD policeman catch wind of our photo shoot, which is taking place without a city permit, but instead of sending us back to the studio across the street, they see Gwen and decide to turn a blind eye to our impromptu production.
Situation Four: A 15-year-old white boy playing basketball in his brand new Air Jordans: “Where’s Gwen? That’s my wife. Hey shweeeetie!”
Situation Five: A tipsy white man in his mid-50s holds his bicycle while decides to speak to Danilo, who is touching up the pop stars Afro. “Is that Gwen Stefani right there? You can tell her Madonna can’t touch her. You can tell her I love her.” To which Gwen replies, “You can tell me, I’m standing right here, aren’t I?” “Well, sure! Isn’t the Hollywood Bowl coming up in a couple of weeks?” “Yes, in a couple of months” “Well, God bless ya. You’ve got it, and most can’t find it. I love ya.”

Andy Warhol first coined the term “superstar” to promote his coterie of New York personalities. The word is now used to describe a widely acclaimed celebrity who has great popular appeal and is considered a major attraction. When we finally sit down for the interview after the enlightening Poinsettia Park episodes, I realized that although Gwen has become accustomed to the adulation, especially in a year that can, by any measure, be described as stellar, she is still relatively unfazed by the everyday situations, privileges and annoyances that come with being a superstar.

“2005 has been a mind-blowing year,” she admits. “It all happened so quick, and wild and different from everything I’ve ever done before, but some of the years in No Doubt before we got on the radio were great as well. To me, it really doesn’t feel all that different from being at Tower Records in Orange County, one year into the band, like 17 years ago, and hearing people whispering about me as the girl from that band. But still, finishing this album and having it accepted the way it was, that was great. There was a lot of mish-mashing and unlikely pairings, like getting into the studio with Dr Dre and Andre 3000. I wanted to make an ’80s inspired dance album, in the style of Debbie Deb and Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and Club Nouveau, but also with Prince and The Time in mind, and I could see how Dr Dre was just rolling his eyes.”

Debbie Deb, as some of you older electro-heads may recall, was a two-hot wonder, but one could easily call her a one-hit wonder, because her two songs “Lookout Weekend” (“Look out weekend ’cause here I come, because weekends were made for fun”) and “When I Hear Music” sound almost the same. “Those are the songs that I would listen to when I used to go dancing at Disneyland or places like Videopolis or Studio K,” Gwen remembers. “For this album, that Debbie Deb style worked for me, because I wanted a record that was more of a chant than a melody. I wanted to do a record a record that would be in the clubs. With No Doubt, that would have been impossible, because that style of dance music excludes the drummer.”

Those years growing up in Orange County remain the foundation of her musical expression, and many of her biggest hits – starting with the breakthrough No Doubt songs “Just a Girl” and “Don’t Speak” from the 1995 album Tragic Kingdom – are derived from Gwen’s own experiences in mid-to-late ’80s Anaheim, home to Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom. In those years, Orange County was the residence of middle class white Californians who chose that particular suburban landscape over the metropolitan sprawl of Los Angeles, but it was also the chosen destination of many immigrant families, and young families, who were able to find nice and safe homes that they could actually afford.

Orange County was known as Reagan country at the time. The years of the gas crisis and forced busing created an extreme Republican climate. There were planned communities like Costa Mesa, where corporations would build an entire city from scratch, with a city center, a mall and recreation centers. Bands like No Doubt proliferated and thrived in a scene that was essentially a reaction to Reaganomics. The post-punk scene had become so vibrant and the music coming out was daring in its own fusion of mod with ska and reggae and hip hop. The early No Doubt records display that unique fusion, and it was obvious that they were listening to The Clash just as much as they appreciated Grandmaster Flash.

Shawn Mortensen, the longtime TRACE magazine photographer who shot the images in this portfolio, has been a friend of Gwen and the other members of No Doubt since 1994, when the band was just about to switch from their indie label to Interscope Records. “There was an immediate connection,” he says, “because we had all hung out in the same area in Orange County and we used to go to the same places, the same clubs. Although I was born in Long Beach, I grew up in Los Angeles and Orange County. When the label asked me to direct a video for them, I knew it would work. They weren’t famous yet, but when I first heard Tragic Kingdom, it felt to me like the Sergeant Pepper’s of Orange County life.” Shawn, who has photographed Gwen and No Doubt many times, ended up being best man at Gwen’s 2002 wedding to Gavin Rossdale. Hearing him talk about the ’80s inspired parties in OC, one senses a deep nostalgia in his voice and a longing for a mythical era that epitomized the uninhabited, creative spirit and do-it-yourself mentality of rebellious Southern Californians.

With her song dedicated to the over-the-top style of the girls who populate Tokyo’s fashionable Harajuku district, Gwen Stefani single-handedly made them recognizable to millions of Americans who would be hard-pressed to locate Japan on a world map. She is building a franchise around the Harajuku iconography so that it can exist beyond her lyrics and videos in her fans; imaginations. Yet, her most popular song from Love. Angel. Music. Baby. album, so far, is not the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-produced “Harajuku Girls” but rather the Neptunes-produced “Hollaback Girl.” Although Gwen is now known for her penchant for Vivienne Westwood and Christian Dior couture dresses – she wore a special John Galliano creation at her wedding – few of her hardcore fans are actually familiar with the high fashion Japenese brands (Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Hysteric Glamour) that she sings about in the song “Harajuku Girls.”

They can, however, relate to the Carson High School cheerleaders she recruited from outer Los Angeles for the perfectly choreographed video that Paul Hunter directed in full Technicolor, with emphasis on Gwen’s pink bra, red majorette’s outfit and bright lowrider. The vivid imagery and The Neptunes’ simple one-two beat complemented the girl power words: “Uh huh, that’s my shit. All the girls stomp your feet like that. ‘Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl.”

“The simplicity of the way Pharrell produces is so different,” she says. “It’s just one take and four instruments. It’s raw and different to the way we produce with No Doubt.” Looking back, it seems ironic that “Hollaback Girl” actually almost never made it to the album, because it was recorded after the album was completed. “We were done with the album and we really didn’t have any space left,” she says, “but I felt I didn’t have my attitude song. I called Pharrell and told him he’d be mad, because he wasn’t on the album. After two days, we had two really good songs, ‘Candy Land’ and ‘You Started It,’ but neither would make it onto the album. Then we did ‘Hollaback Girl’.”

After all, the first Neptunes collaboration outside of hip hop was with No Doubt on “Hella Good” from the 2001 Rock Steady album. They have come a long way since then. More than just an attitude song, “Hollaback Girl” somehow represented the mood of the summer of 2005, really striking a chord with young fans around the world. Shortly after “Hollaback Girl” emerged as one of the most significant songs of the year, Gwen flew to Miami to work with Pharrell in his studio and record more songs. “I have another record and I have to say the stuff that me and Pharrell did is so rad. I’m afraid if I wait too long before releasing it, it will be old. DJ Clue came down came down to the studio with eight beautiful girls, and he listened to the whole thing.”

Now that they have an entire album’s worth of material, Gwen is toying with the idea of releasing those songs as an entirely new album for Christmas or Valentine’s Day. She even has the artwork and creative direction all ready to go. But then again, the schedules may change, because her record company already has a DVD lined up for a Christmas release. This is what happens when superstars get prolific.

In the midst of all this hyperactivity, one has to question the future of No Doubt and the viability of a band, however successful, whose lead singer has found so many niches of her own, away from the legacy of a sound that was first formulated in 1986. Gwen refutes any suggestion that the band might break up, and she even mentions that they have pledged to reunite in January of 2006. She says all this while making sure she provides the context of her solo career.

“The Rock Steady Tour was one of the best experiences for us as a band. At the end of it, Adrian [Young, the drummer] had a baby. I had just got married, like two days before the tour started. After the tour ended, that’s when I heard that Club Nouveau song again, and the idea of my solo record turned out to be a huge personal challenge. We all decided to concentrate on our own projects. Tom [Dumont, the guitarist] is on tour with Matt Costa and Tony [Kanal, the bassist] is playing with Perry Farrell. When we get into the studio again, it will be great for everyone, because they will be all charged up, with the time that I was away.”

The No Doubt greatest hits album with a wonderful cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life” came out early last year, at the same time when Gwen was beginning to work on her own album. Having been with the same three guys for 18 years, including a now well-documented eight years as Tony Kanal’s girlfriend, she feels that they are a family for life. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve been apart,” she says, “because Tony has been my bouncing board. I still lean on him for advice.” Tony produced three tracks for L.A.M.B and although he has been working on his own side projects in Jamaica and elsewhere, he has remained a big presence in her life. (She points out that he is the one who turned her on to Club Nouveau and Debbie Deb in the first place.)

The song “Don’t Speak,” which spent a record-breaking 16 weeks at the top of the charts in 1996 and pretty much put No Doubt on the map, is well known as Gwen’s heartfelt response to her difficult breakup with Tony. A decade later, the gorgeous video (set in Italy) that Sophie Muller directed for Gwen’s latest single “Cool” is a testament – albeit a very confusing one – to the unbreakable bond between Gwen and Tony. In it, Tony’s current girlfriend plays the girlfriend of Gwen’s fictional ex, acted by a model who looks suspiciously like Gwen’s real life husband Gavin, in a song that was inspired by Gwen’s current relationship to Tony.

“Cool” Is a prime example of Gwen’s proven songwriting skills – “After all the obstacles/ It’s good to see you now with someone else/ And it’s such a miracle that you and me are still good friends/ After all that we’ve been through / I know we’re cool.” Some of the inspiration came from the song’s producer, Dallas Austin. “‘Cool’ is an amazing song,” she says, “because I wanted to work with Dallas Austin. He’d signed Fishbone, and I felt we’d have a connection, especially knowing that he’s such a solid songwriter. He had a similar story with an ex-girlfriend of eight years, and he’d written a song about it that he’d never finished. As soon as he started playing the chords I helped him finish the song. He had this idea of cool, which he couldn’t make cool, so I wrote the lyrics in ten minutes. I wanted a Cindy Lauper or Madonna ‘Crazy For You’ feel to the song, and it came out beautifully.”

Walking across the Poinsettia Park, Gwen receives a call on her cell phone from someone who could very well be a booking agent, and from the conversation that we overhear, it sounds like she is being offered the opportunity to tour right up to Christmas day. “That’s something I’ll have to speak to Gavin about,” she says. ” I just can’t make that decision right now. We’re supposed to spend Christmas in England.” Gwen admits that she is nervous about the upcoming Harajuku Lovers Tour, because up until now, touring has always been about going on the road with her No Doubt family. “The tour is going to be different, because it will involve a lot of costume changes. It will be a lot more theatrical, and I will get to do things that I could never do with No Doubt, things that would be considered cheesy in the rock world. I mean, I love theater, I love the Sound of Music, so the Harajuku Lovers Tour will be an opportunity.”

It all seems so convenient, and I have to admit that several of my friends find Gwen Stefani’s constant references to the Harajuku subculture annoying. The tour that references the clothing line that references the camera that references the lyrics from the single may all be a bit much, but beyond a simple celebrity marketing ploy, it appears that Gwen Stefani is serious about the cross-promotion. When pressed for an answer, she seems to genuinely see her Harajuku-influenced mantra as a way to give more Gwen back to her fans. If she can make a little extra money on the side while doing that, well why not?

“The concept behind Harajuku Lovers line was to create clothes that would be better conceived than just another merchandising line. I’ve been working on it for over a year, and it was hard to get it right. Whereas L.A.M.B is my creative project that I have total free ride on, it remains limited by the price points. It’s just too expensive for most of my fans. Harajuku Lovers is how I express another kind of creativity, because I am so inspired by the whole Japanese culture. The song lyrics are all over the t-shirts, and the clothes are available for all ages and sizes, from babies all the way to XXL. We have erasers and school stuff and we even teamed up with Nakajima for some Hello Kitty items.”

Although Gwen has full creative control over the L.A.M.B line, she has recruited an new designer to guide her through the creative process. New York-based Zaldy who has designed costumes for Mary J Blige and Christina Aguilera in addition to Gwen, says that he has known Gwen for a while because his ex-boyfriend, Matthew Anderson, used to be Gwen’s make-up artist.

“Even before meeting her in person, the first day I saw her on TV, I could tell she was for real,” he says. “She just seemed like the kind of girl I would have hung out with in high school.” One night, when he was returning to Los Angeles from the Coachella music festival with Gwen’s hair stylist Danilo, he was invited to a party at Gwen’s house. That’s when she approached him with the idea of helping her design her new collection. “I was flattered, and when we started working together, I had to process all this information. When I design the L.A.M.B line, I always have her in mind, because she is the muse, the only muse, whereas when I design my own line, I have other muses. It is really a great experience for me, because [stylist] Andrea Lieberman is also a consultant, and I get to work in a team. It’s almost like doing a group project.”

In 1997, I was invited to a Chinese restaurant called Chi Dynasty, in the Hollywood Hills near Gwen’s house in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. That night, I had dinner with photographer Shawn Mortensen, Gavin and Gwen. I remember asking her about being a star, and she told me about the constant online interactions she had with her fans. She said that she had a habit of checking the Internet on a regular basis. She admitted that, somehow, she always managed to find the time to to maintain ongoing dialogues with a lot of her devoted fans. Eight years later, at the Quixote Studios, I reminded her of our conversation and asked her whether she still had time to engage in regular dialogue with her fans, having recently spotted dozen of websites dedicated to the cult of Stefani. She thought about it for a second and said “I like going online and look here and there, but it’s not really that healthy, because you get bummed out a lot. Actually, all the fan forums on our sites are down at the moment because they got hacked.”

When the interview was drawing to a close, I asked her about the history behind my all-time favourite No Doubt song, “Sunday Morning,” from the Tragic Kingdom album. She smiled and said it was such a long time ago. She told me that the video, which was directed in the spring of 1997 by Sophie Muller, in her third of eight collaborations with No Doubt, was filmed at her grandparents’ house. “The guy that’s in the store when I buy the tomatoes, that’s my grandpa.” Those somewhat innocent statements are really charming coming from a 35-year-old superstar in her prime. They also go a long way towards explaining the enduring popularity of Gwen Stefani, the hardworking girl from the OC who once sang about wanting a simple kind of life. “I was with Tony when we wrote ‘Sunday Morning’, and we were just kids just learning how to write songs. I never in a million years would have that that…”

When queen of cool, Gwen Stefani, scheduled downtime with CG!, we hit her with your must-know questions on guys, fashion and, erm, bananas…

I love your solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Would you have tried this kind of music if you were still in No Doubt? Louise, 15, Essex
What happened was we’d made made a record and after that we said, “We’re going on a break.” No Doubt had never taken a break in 17 years. So I said to Tony [Kamal, No Doubt bass player and Gwen's ex], “Wouldn’t it be fun to do a dance record while we’re on the break, the sort of fun songs we listened to in high school?” So the idea was to work with new people and then return to No Doubt, but I never thought my solo album would be this successful.

What is it with your banana obsession? Hannah, 15, Boston
I’m very fond of bananas, but not [puts on a stuffy Englsih accent] “bananas!” When we were writing Hollaback Girl I was looking at tons of different cheers. I wasn’t a cheerleader myself, but in the US all these different traditional cheers are sung at games and the banana cheer is a famous one. Well obviously the ’shit’ part isn’t in it!

How do you deal with fame? Where do you hide? Susie, 17, Southampton
I don’t hide. Fame’s one of those things it’s hard to describe until you experience it, no one prepares you. If I’m feeling sorry for myself, or feeling fat and ugly, or any of the things that might put me in a bad mood, I don’t leave the house! I know it won’t last forever though so I just try to enjoy it. I’m lucky.

What’s the best thing about your job? Sophie, 14, Derbyshire
Lately it’s felt like I have a thousand jobs and they’re all great. It’s awesome to get to a point where you’re surrounded by unbelievably talented people and you earned it through years of extremely hard work.

Do you see yourself as a role model? Ellie, 18, West Midlands
After so long in the business I am aware of it. For the longest time it was just people like me at our shows, there wasn’t an age difference, but now it’s so varied. I watch certain words I would have said on stage. You do feel slightly responsible. People have asked me to endorse products, but I’ve said no. But I don’t live my life by it. I don’t say, “It’s my life. I never asked to be a role model.” I just try to be a good person.

Hey Gwen! You’re my total idol, but who are yours? Christina, 14, Ascot
Because of the bands I like, I had tons of guy idols. I was into Madness and a group called Fishbone. I’ve always like Julie Andrews, I’m a huge fan. I’ve met so many people I’ve looked up to. Sometimes, it’s not that they disappoint you, but you lose your fantasy of them a little. But everybody I’ve met has been cool, I’ve never met an idol and thought, “Oh no, I hate them!”

Hi Gwen, can you help with some guy advice? You must have loads of admirers, how can you tell when a guy likes you? Lauren, 15, Leeds
That’s where I can’t help you Lauren, because I’ve only had two boyfriends in my entire life! I’d die if I had to go on a date. I live through all my friends’ love lives and they tell me about flirting and stuff and I’m like “Oh my gosh!” So I don’t have any love advice, I’m afraid. If you listen to my songs you can see I don’t have a clue!

You seem like a strong woman. Who wears the trousers in your relationship with Gavin? Teresa, 15, Lincoln
I think we balance each other out, that’s why we’re in love. Neither of us rules the house. It’s our little sacred world and I don’t give much out about it. But I have to say my husband balances me out.

How do you walk in those ginormous shoes you wear? Fiona, 14, Dundee
I’ve always wanted to wear heels since I was a little girl. Now I’m all grown up I wear them as much as I can. The higher the better. But it definitely takes practice.

What’s all this Harajuku stuff about? Racheal, 17, South Wales
Harajuku is a shopping district in Tokyo and when I first went there I felt like I’d come home. It was like another planet, but the planet I was meant to be on. It’s so cool where kids hang on weekends. They’ve got a real sense of style and it’s all about showing off your personality through fashion. I had a fantasy about getting myself some Harajuku girls and the next thing I knew it was true.

Do you make your outfits? Diane, 18, Peterborough
Yeah, it’s all part of the creative plan. I think the visuals on Love. Angel. Music. Baby. are equally as important as the music. It’s just beginning in a way because I’m starting a clothing line called Harajuku Lovers that’s for the fans. I created a range called LAMB, that’s like my fashion line that is really for me. But Harajuku Lovers is almost like a Hello Kitty line. It’s crazy and cute!

Gwen Stefani’s rock’n'roll-meets-red-carpet style takes over the world. By Michele Sponagle. Photography by Max Abadian.

From where she sits, on top of the world, Gwen Stefani might now believe the lightening can strike in the same place more than once. In the past six months, she’s accomplished more than many artists do in a lifetime.

While she experienced much success with her band No Doubt (more than 30 million records sold), it seems that the turbo boosters of fame have pushed her to even greater heights, beginning with Love.Angel.Music.Baby. Her first solo CD has already sold more than three million copies, racking up three successful singles so far (including the current radio fave, “Hollaback Girl”).

Along with her tremendous success as a solo musical artist, she recently dipped a toe into acting with a brief but memorable role as Jean Harlow in the Howard Hughes bio flick, The Aviator. Then the news came that her clothing line, L.A.M.B was reportedly headed to the fashion big leagues to showcase the Spring ‘06 collection with a New York show in September.

Add to her ice cream sundae of a life a handful of awards (a Brit Award for Best International Female Solo Artist, and MTV Australia Music Award for Best Dressed Video for “What You Waiting For>” and three Grammy wins, to boot), such a high profile magazine covers as Rolling Stone, Vibe, and Harper’s Bazaar and, for the cherry on top, her marriage to gorgeous rock star/actor Gavin Rossdale, and you have a 35-year-old woman who’s closer to having it all than most.

Despite this, Stefani would like you to believe she’s just an average gal. “There is nothing different [about me] except that I’ve written a few songs and made a few clothes,” she tells FLARE from her LA home. “That’s it.”

That sentiment makes her all the more endearing, but it’s mostly untrue. With a not-so-average music career securely in check, she’s steering her much-lauded sense of fashion cool toward her L.A.M.B designs. And Stefani’s fashion empire is growing as fiercly as her own evolving image. Her designs encompass a beautiful contradiction of girlie and feminine ideals alongside edgy and streetsmart looks. The results have moved the finicky fashion world to applause and many L.A.M.B fans to sign up on waiting lists at such luxury stores as Holt Renfrew.

Stefani’s next fabulous endeavor, in addition to putting the finishing touches on L.A.M.B’s fall collection (which Women’s Wear Daily describes as “pirate-inspired”), is the introduction of Harajuku Lovers, a line of accessories that include dolls, shirts, stationary and housewares.

“[Harajuku Lovers] is more for the fans,” she says. “I love designing, It’s something I’ve done my whole life. My mom made all my clothes and her mom made [hers, too]. It’s definitely in my blood. To [design] at this level is way beyond a dream come true.”

L.A.M.B (Stefani’s clothing label – an acronym for Love, Angel, Music, Baby and named after dog) debuted in a crowded arena of celebrity spawned fashion in September 2003 with a line of bags created for LeSportsac. The line made its mark among the star set and with people who wanted to claim some of Stefani’s edgy, quirky style for themselves. Come this fall, she is out to seize a larger chunk of the lucrative fashion pie for L.A.M.B by adding jewelery and shoes to the line, which will be inspired by her love of all things Asian. According to Holt Renfrew’s fashion director, Barbara Atkin, Stefani’s designs are successful because “she’s not taking street fashion and making it elitist. She’s cleaning it up and giving it quality.” The results have been pretty and impressive. L.A.M.B has become one of Holt Renfrew’s bestsellers for 2005, with items selling as fast as the come in, which is unusual for a newly launched line. “We’re into the age of celebrity designers” says Atkin, “but not all of them have the integrity of quality. Gwen fits that calibre. She is someone who will go down as one of those great iconic women who represent a decade of style.”

For Stefani, however, inspiration for her personal style came from some obscure places. “When I was trying to create L.A.M.B, I was thinking about all the brands I love,” explains the Californian native, “and there were a lot of Japanese lines, like Super Lovers and Hysteric Glamour, that had this cute, casual thing I wanted L.A.M.B to have. I like the idea that someone might go, ‘Where the f*** did you get those jeans?’ And you can’t stop wearing them and they’re not like anyone else’s.”

Jeans and jewelery asside, Stefani’s current fashion fascinations are her beloved Harajuku Girls. They are as much a part of her look as her designer duds by Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano. Her attraction to this four-pack of stylin’ babes, and for Japanese culture in general, has deep roots.

“When I went to Japan for the first time in 1996 with No Doubt,” she explains, “[I was already] a fan of Japan. My dad was working for Yamaha Motorcycles and would travel to Japan. He’d bring stuff back [for me]. I loved Hello Kitty and all those different Japanese things. When I went there for the first time, I went to this area of Tokyo called Harajuku, where, for the past 20 years, kids would dress up and hang out on the weekends. It was about personal style and expression through fashion. I really connected to that.”

Stefani’s Harajuku Girls, whom she hired to become her silent glamour posse during her solo album’s promotional tour, became a kind of security blanket for her – one Stefani needed as she battled the insecurities that came with working with music legend Linda Perry (who has written and produced songs for Pink and Christina Aguilera) on her solo debut. While Stefani struggled to put lyrics to paper, Perry created songs almost effortlessly. It was a ego-shredding experience that left Stefani in tears on occasion. “[The Harajuku Girls] became my muses, my inspiration and my confidence,” she admits. “Every time I drew a blank, I dreamed about [my posse]”

In the end, L.A.M.B – the album – has turned out to be the singer’s morst personal work to date, from the first single, “What You Waiting For?”, about her writers block, to “Cool,” about staying friends with an ex, inspired by Stefani’s relationship with No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal. Her current single, the catchy “Hollback Girl,” is Stefani’s parting shot to the detractors who didn’t think she could pull off this record. The music video for this “attitude song,” as Stefani describes it, was shot at a high school with video director Paul Hunter. And, once again, there are Harajuku Girls – cruising in a yellow sports car, with their biggest fan.

I ronically, this rock-star existence wsn’t what Stefani dreamed about as a high-school student in California. She now describes the Gwen of those days as “passive”. Much has changed since then, even though she still has her off days. As the reigning queen of cool, Stefani’s crown sparkles, but it isn’t always a comfortable fit.

“There are days when I have problems leaving the house because I can’t figure out what to wear,” she confesses. “One of my worst fears is to go out and not feel good in what I’m wearing. What you wear is an extension of your personality and who you are. It’s the skin above the skin.”

That’s proof, according to Stefani, that she’s just an ordinary gal wwho happens to have done well in her accidental career. “I’m definitely fooling people every single day, I’m like everybody else. The only difference is that I’ve got an [18-year] history of being creative. I make music and, if people like it, they let me do it again. I work with really talented people who make my dreams come true – [it's] nothing more than that. I don’t have the answers.”

Perhaps. But Stefani certainly has her share of them. As she looks to the future, she does know that motherhood will likely be part of the picture, that a new No Doubt record may happen (“We’re flirting with the idea”), that she has no immediate plans to tour (“It takes you from the people you love”) and that she’ll persue more film roles. But she is reluctant to talk about these things (“It’s really boring to talk about things that when they’re not going to happen for sure”). Even overexposure is something Stefani is ready to conquer head on. “If people make me overexposed [and] shoot me down. I’ll be dead for a while, but I’ll be back.”

Gwen Stefani’s own brand of sexy-cool has made her a style icon. With her first solo album and a line of clothes she’s designing herself, Stefani races into the future. Here, the songstress talks about staying true to herself through the firestorm of fame, her hope for a baby, and the real reason she wears those big, baggy jeans. By Susan Swimmer.

After years of fronting the Grammy-award-winning band No Doubt, Gwen Stefani decided it was time to branch out. She’s “on fire right now,” and who can argue? Her first solo album, a hip-hop inspired dance fest called Love. Angel. Music. Baby, was released in November 2004 and has already gone platinum; she’s just completed a European tour; the clothing line she designs, called L.A.M.B for short, is wildly successful; and a line of accessories and T-shirts called Harajuku Lovers – directly tied to her album – is set to launch this fall. It’s no wonder Stefani’s quirky sense of cool is now the backbone of her very own fashion empire – her sexy-sweet, gender-bending looks have inspired everyone from mall rats to rap moguls, changing the way the world thinks about style. For Stefani, life doesn’t imitate art, her life is her art.

Girly Grunge

By her own admission, Stefani’s look is an ever-changing obsession that started long before she made it to the top of the charts. “Growing up in Anaheim, CA, I always made my own clothes,” she says. “In the beginning I’d go to thrift stores, or places like The Wet Seal and Contempo Casuals, and try to find something weird. Then I’d take it home and remake it. I had a sewing machine in my room; it was the danger zone. It was, like, pins and needles everywhere.”

Stefani’s brand of girlish grunge developed a small, cult-like following among the Gen X-ers who loved Ska music. “My girlfriend and I went to every single Scars and JC Penney’s and bought out every single child’s extra-large T-shirt and tank top. We printed pink No Doubt logos on them and sold them at our concerts.” Stefani paired her T-shirt with super-baggy pants culled from the boys’ section of thrift stores, “because I never really liked my legs or butt,” and her fans went wild. By the time the band started to make it nationally, there were legions of Gwen-itators.

Searching for… Something

Looking at Stefani now, in the studio for Marie Claire’s cover shoot, it’s hard to believe it all started with something so homespun. She is surrounded by racks and racks of brightly patterned couture clothing, and her trademark platinum hair cascades in curls halfway down her back. Stefani wears big, baggy jeans, torn and faded to perfection, and neon-green bra straps peek out from underneath a ribbed white tank. As our talk turns to her career, Stefani’s near-encyclopedic memory of every look worn, every lyric sung, and every concert played, is scary.

I flash Stefani a photograph of herself with fuchsia hair, circa 2000, and her face falls. “My boyfriend and I had just broken up,” she says of the time she and now-husband Gavin Rossdale almost called it quits. “You can tell by my style that I was searching so hard. I was 29, and I was like, Fuck it, I’m going to dye my hair pink. And I had braces, the one thin I bought when I got rich.”

Stefani admits the drastic look wasn’t just about a breakup. After two wildly successful albums, expectations were high for No Doubt to hit again. “It was a really hard time for me,” she says now. “I thought, I gotta be someone, I gotta live up to who I want to be.” It was during this time that Stefani wrote some of her best lyrics. “I really define myself as a songwriter. It’s pure torture, but it’s magic when it happens. When I realized I could write songs, that’s when I discovered myself. Before that, I didn’t feel I was good at anything. I’m a very different girl now than I used to be.”

The Bindi Boom

Stefani says the girl she used to be had no direction. “I had a hard time learning in school. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she says. She was taking art classes at a local community college, toying with the idea of working as a makeup artist, when the band got offered a European tour. Performing gave Stefani an outlet for the visual experimentation she loved – whatever inspired her got worked into her wardrobe – and she had an innate knack for clashing styles. “I went out with [No Doubt bassist] Tony Kanal for eight years. He’s Indian, and I grew up watching his mom. She’d get all made up, with her sari and her jewels on, and I thought she was so glamorous. I bought those stick-on earrings and started wearing them on my forehead as bindis.” When Stefani wore one in the “Just a Girl” video paired with sporty workout wear, it typified her fashion-blender sensibilities.

Girl Power

No Doubt’s popularity grew exponentially with each successive release, and Stefani rode the wave of huge sales and glowing reviews. When they released Rock Steady, their fifth album, Stefani says it was one of the best times in her life. “Our egos were gone,” she says of her bandmates. “We were just so in love with each other and so proud of the album. It was like, ‘This is crazy, how’d we get so far?’ ”

Stefani felt strong and confident, and the look she honed for the tour was a sort of edgy, sexy, urban chic. “I was inspired by a trip to Jamaica,” Stefani says of the mesh top she wore under a barely there bikini top in 2001. “I wore grafitti pants that looked like a mock-up of the album cover artwork, and I had just done this Pussycat Dolls [burlesque] show with these big ponytails, and I was like, I wanna do ponytails.” Stefani’s body, which she admits takes a lot of work to maintain, was ab-fab. “Having to work out sucks, but once you get me on the treadmill I’m happy,” she says. “I fight getting there, like everybody. It’s always been something I have to work and earn.”

Dream Dress

In 2002, Stefani married long-time love Rossdale ina traditional ceremony in London. “That was one of my best looks ever,” Stefani gushes. “I felt very beautiful. John Galliano did my gown. I talked to him on the phone and showed him pictures of things I liked. He sent drawings over, and the bottom of the dress was all pink. I was like, Is that a shadow, or is that really what he’s going to do? I never told him to make it pink.”

Stefani’s workload has been nonstop ever since the nuptials, and she credits her husband for “balancing me and reeling me in.” With a schedule like hers, it can’t be easy. “A great day for me is not getting out of bed,” she allows. “I like to see how many snack I can eat there, how many crumbs I can drop, and how many really bad TV shows I can watch. I also like the Discovery Channel, and shows about makeovers or babies being born.”

Clearly, motherhood is on her mind, and at 35, Stefani wrestles with the possibility of soon or never. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” she says. “I was hanging out with my nephew the other day, and he’s like a frickin’ Twinkie he’s so delicious. But it’s kind of not up to me. I’ve been on this journey, and I don’t want to be too greedy about what’s going to come next. I’ll be really happy when it happens.”

You Know You’ve Arrived When…

In 2003 No Doubt was tapped to perform at the Super Bowl, an honor she calls one of the best moments in her life. What’s more, Stefani shared the stage with Sting, whom she had long adored. “I actually met him for the first time when I was 16,” she says. “My dad worked for Yamaha motorcycles, and he got me backstage after one of the Police’s concerts. I was really fat and puberty-stricken, and my dad was like, ‘ Ask him for an autograph.’ So I did, and he was really mean. But I still loved him.” Stefani laughs at the memory. “When I met Sting years later, I told him that story, and he was like, ‘Oh man, I was such a dick back then,’ ” she says. “But he’s such a great guy.”

Stefani’s skyrocketing status opened unlikely doors, including Hollywood’s Golden Globe ceremony in 2004. “I felt very much out of my element there.I wore a very simple vintage Valentino gown, with my hair up in a French twist. The whole thing was inspired by Hitchcock’s Rear Window. I felt so sophisticated. The press kind of worked me over for that look, but then a year later they said they like it. Whatever.”

Stefani has learned to live with the bad reviews. It’s not like it ever discourages me from doing something I want to do,” she says. “I really don’t care what people say. If I followed what people said I should do, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

East Meets West

Stefani’s most recent style incarnation – sporty Lolita meets French maid – is actually her own take on a trend she saw in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood. “I was really inspired by the kids there,” she says. “They were all about self-expression through fashion, and this whole ping-pong match between Eastern and Western and how we steal each other’s ideas.”

Stefani says the idea of adding four Japanese backup dancers to her show came to her in a dream. Studying a 2005 red-carpet picture of herself with the girls, Stefani is loving the poufy crinoline skirts paired with neon knee pads that pop off the page. I pull out one last photo. It’s a picture of a brunette Stefani wearing almost the exact same crinoline skirt, circa 1989. “Do you see that?” she squeals. “It’s like the same look for 20 years. That’s so crazy! I feel like I’ve come full circle.” And with that, Stefani disappears through the racks of clothes.

Few mix it up like style queen Gwen Stefani. But unlike most pretenders to her throne, she’s not too precious to share her secrets. Respect.

We get a shock when Gwen Stefani walks into the room. That’s to be expected, of course,  from a peroxide bombshell rock goddess. But today, as she saunters in from the 11 o’clock sunshine to the industrial cool of an LA photo studio, we’re taken aback because she’s so, well, under-stated.

Dressed almost head to toe in her own label L.A.M.B (Mukluk-style boots being the only concession), a beanie covers her trademark hair, over-sized shades shield her face and, despite the bomber jacket, she looks daintier than her larger-than-life stage presence – kinda doll like, which is really rather appropriate for a girl with such a penchant for dressing up.

‘This is my everyday outfit,’ she says. ‘These jackets are wicked, the lining’s camouflage with little lambs – I call it Lambi Cami.’ Gwen’s got a way with words – just read the lyrics, or cute sleeve notes, on her debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby (L.A.M.B, geddit?). And as she laughs and chatters her way through our interview so enthusiastically that it’s a struggle to actually get a word in, it’s clear that not only has she got plenty to crow about, but that she’s toe-wigglingly happy with life right now.

First single What You Waiting For?, produced by studio svengali Nelle Hooper of Madonna and Björk fame, went to top 10 and follow-up Rich Girl, featuring Eve and produced by Dr. Dre, is destroying the charts right now. Elsewhere on the album, Gwen has collaborated with with other big-hitters such as The Neptunes and Andre 3000 from OutKast. She’s just won a Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist and is still very much at the forefront of No Doubt, with whom she’s sold 25 million records and won three Grammys.

Then there’s L.A.M.B, the clothing label she started two years ago with friend Andrea Lieberman. Right now Gwen’s working on an accessories line. ‘It’s Japanese-inspired, kind of Hello Kitty but older,’ she says. ‘It’s so cute. I even designed this digital camera with its own bag, stationary and all this Harajuku stuff.’

Last year she landed her first film role, in Matin Scorsese’s The Aviator, alongside Leo DiCaprio, after missing out on Chicago, Fight Club and Girl, Interrupted. It’s a back-row-snog-and-you’ll-miss-it part, but the first step on the last leg of Gwen’s bid for world domination, plus she got to play her heroine, Jean Harlow. ‘She was dope-ass, with skinny eyebrows and attitude – way ahead of her time.’

Meanwhile, Gwen splits her downtime between two continents, with homes in Los Angeles and Primrose Hill, London, where she lives with husband Gavin Rossdale from Bush, with whom she’s currently planning to have a family. So all in all, it’s something of a miracle she still finds time to be a fashion icon and inspiration to ELLEgirls everywhere.

So Gwen, first of all, can we just say that we’re loving your style?
Well, I love ELLEgirl too – I am an ELLEgirl. But I find it so surreal that people look up to me, because I’m just me, you know.

It’s because you’re so original. Where do you get your inspiration from?
I don’t really feel I’m original, I’m just a big collaboration of stolen goods. I’m inspired by everything around me, like I could look at somebody in the street and go, ‘OK, I’m doing that.’ I’m the biggest thief ever, it’s a big recycling thing. Over the years I’ve been inspired by tons of things – punk rock, Hollywood glamour girls, the ska scene, and I just put it into a big salad and mix it up. I was going to call my album Stolen Goods, or This Was Yours, Now It’s Mine.

But the way you mix stuff together it always works…
Thank you, that’s nice.

How do you get it right every time?
I don’t think I do! I guess I just have a passion for fashion… I love it. But it’s such a wierd thing to talk about – that’s why I never did it in the past, I’d always be so embarassed. Fashion’s just what you wear in the morning, you know.

When did you become conscious of it?
I hit puberty and found music, and all of a sudden I wanted to be unique. In high school I did a lot of sewing and thrift-store shopping. My mum sewed a lot of clothes for me when I was growing up, so I spent loads of time at the fabric store. Every dance that came up, we would buy fabric and make my dress. For prom, I remade Grace Kelly’s dress from the movie Rear Window. My parents were strict, though. If I was walking to college, they’d drive by and say, ‘You’re not going to school like that!’ Now I don’t wear anything that anyone tells me to wear.

Which designers inspire you?
Vivienne Westwood drives me crazy. She is the ultimate because she started the whole punk thing – so many people have copied her that she’s the book that you go to. She takes classical tradition and twists it modern. Every time I come to London I give her most of my pay check.

Do you have a stylist?
I’ve always done my own until I met Andrea Lieberman on the Let Me Blow Ya Mind video in 2001. We’ve been working together ever since and now she’s one of my best friends. She knows the fashion world a lot better than me – I’m just a girl from Orange County who goes thrift-store shopping.

We’ve got to ask – is Orange County anything like the O.C.?
Not the one I grew up in! My family lived across the street from Disneyland surrounded by a bunch of seedy motels.

How would you describe your album?
Well it was supposed to be a silly dance record, kinda like the songs I used to listen to in high school. I wanted to make a modern version of early 80s stuff like Club Nouveau, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Prince, early Madonna… But when you’re writing you never know what you’re going to get, depending on your moods and what you’re going through at the time.

Like, the Harajuku Girls, for example?
I’m really inspired by the whole Tokyo scene. The first time I went, it was as if I’d landed on another planet – I was, like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Harajuku Girls are all about being an individual and expressing yourself through style and that’s something I’ve always done. And then I started thinking, ‘I’m giving myself some Harajuku Girls and I’m going to roll with them everywhere I go.’ It was like a fantasy, almost like my muse.

You collaborated with a lot of people – what did you enjoy most?
The last session with Pharrell (Williams) was really fun becuase I already had the album done and was feeling confident. We got there at four in the afternoon and finished the song by 11. We were, ‘Wow, this is so fun.’ There was a magical thing going through us at that point.

We’re very jealous of you spending time with Pharrell in a small room…
I’m jealous of myself, I’m like – wow!

Did you learn anything about yourself from working with all these people?
That I have a massive ego. Songwriting defines me and makes me feel like I am something in this world, so to open myself up to other people was totally threatening. It was so nerve-wrecking, sitting in a room with Andre 3000, going, ‘Shit, I hope I can think of something – anything!’ But doing that fueled some fire in me.

How do you find time to do everything?
I have this big list of things I want to do and a clock ticking really hard in my head. I knew that if I didn’t do the album then, I’d never do the movie, the No Doubt record would never come out… It’s where the idea for the first single came from, like, ‘What You Waiting For, Gwen? Don’t complain about it – just go do it.’

Gwen on the couch

If you could be an accessory, what would you be?
Maybe I’d be a bra. Something sexy…

What excites you?
Following through with my ideas.

What would you do if you could be invisible?
I feel that I’ve been a fly on the wall for years, being in a band with all boys, so I’d much prefer to be visible: ‘Hello? Pay attention to me!’

How do you cheer yourself up if you’re having a bad day?
Eat pizza or Pringles, or just go to sleep… move on to the next day. That’s not very inspirational, is it? Now all you ELLEgirls will be, ‘We’ve got an excuse to go to bed.’

When are you happiest?
When I’m in bed, watching TV with my husband – eating pizza!

Do you have a recurring dream?
My dog Megan just died but she keeps coming back in my dreams so I suppose that’s God’s way of letting me still hang out with her.

Favourite smell?
Right now it’s a candle called Violet.

Do you have a massive wardrobe?
It’s obscene as I get all the L.A.M.B samples. Every so often I invite all of my friends over to pillage.

What do you always have on you?
My wedding ring, that’s going to be on me for life, and a toothbrush as I never know how long I’m going to be away. Then just my Blackberry, some sunglasses and lipstick.

Best invention?
I love the internet. To connect with the outside world without having to go out is really unbelievable.

Do you have a nickname?
Gwennie? But usually it’s just Gwen or Lamb, as I call everybody Lamb.

How do you spend your free time?
I’m usually really depressed, going, ‘I don’t know what to do with myself.’ I fantasise about going on vactation with my husband, that’d be weird. We’ve never done that before…

Name one thing you’d like to change about the world?
That there was no racism. It seems such an easy thing to get rid of.

What do you wish you could do that you can’t?
Choreography – I wish I could dance like Beyoncé or Michael Jackson.

Favourite journey?
This whole life’s been a long journey, but a good one. I don’t want it to end.