When beauty icon and perennial Nylon favorite Gwen Stefani came to New York recently – husband Gavin Rossdale and sons Kingston and Zuma in tow – we figured it was a good opportunity for a chat about her makeup memories, her harajuku lovers fragrance franchise, and her preteen deodorant preference. By Holly Siegel.

When you were on our cover in June/July 2000, you desribed your courtship with Gavin as fairy-tale like. It doesn’t seem like much has changed.
We’ve been married seven years. It’s crazy, there’s no itch. The [seven-year] itch, right? Maybe because we’ve been together for 13 years.

The last time we talked about Harajuku Lovers, you said that you would do a makeup line.
I’ve always wanted to. I feel like my plate’s a little bit full right now, [but] I love makeup. I used to run home from school, and my girlfriend’s mom had so much Mary Kay it was insane. I didn’t understand how this woman had so much makeup. We’d be like, “Let’s go ask your mom if we can go and do makeup.” I’d be like, burning everyone’s neck with a curling iron. I was always giving somebody a makeover.

What was the first concert you attended?
Emmylou Harris at the Palomino. My parents took me. She had to take a break because she was going to nurse her baby in the back during the concert, I will always remember that. I actually got to do the cover of Vanity Fair with her and told her the story. She’s like, “Oh! Now my daughter’s, like, 30 years old.”

Are there any musicians whom you would love to work with now?
I feel like music is in a really weird place right now. I judge it all by [if] I would be jealous, like, “I wish I wrote that song.” I like that Ting Tings song. I love the Killers. There’s not much great stuff right now that I’m super inspired by, to be honest. Is that rude? I think everything feels the same way. Is there anything that’s great. There’s no Beatles. I think there’s a lot of interesting people out there, not, like The Cure, where you have an amazing sexy guy who wrote a thousand good songs that the whole world wants to listen to over and over again.

Is there anyone who could make you starstuck?
I love Joni Mitchell. I actually got to meet her and have dinner with her. The only person I haven’t met who is one of my idols — and I don’t want to meet — Julie Andrews. At a certain point, it’s like, come on, let me have one fantasy.

What was the first perfume you wore?
I didn’t really–my parents were pretty strict about that stuff. But I think probably Love’s Baby Soft or something. I can’t remember. There’s this one [deodorant] brand that used to be called Tickle. I used to always want to get it.

Why?
Because it was on TV, and it looked really cool. When you’re a preteen, you just want everything they put on TV, and you just go to Sav-On and you are like, “Pleeeeeeease!!”

Mostly transcribed by Jenny from Beacon Street Online, what a star!

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.

Thanks to gwen-stefani.ru – Gwen is currently on the July cover of Oops magazine in Russia. The magazine also features an article that appears to be about Gwen’s style and fashion lines; L.A.M.B. and Harajuku Lovers.

Gwen’s our fave fashion and pop icon and all-round quirky chick – No Doubt about it!

Hi there, Gwen! Good to catch up with you – how are you doing?
“I’m great, thanks!”

You’re famed for your bold fashion statements and for being a trendsetter. Do you choose all your outfits yourself?
“Well, I have stylists who bring things in for me, although I still get very excited about what I’m going to wear every day! I used to make my own clothes when I was younger, too, so it’s very exciting for me!”

Well, now you’ve got your own, über-cool fashion labels and a signature perfume, too. Tell us about them…
“I have a whole range of merchandise called L.A.M.B, which is named after the initials of my first solo album, Love Angel Music Baby. Plus there’s another, called Harajuku Lovers, inspired by Japanese street style. My perfume is called L, which again stands for Love and it’s like me shrunken into a little box!”

Your hands-on attitude to design led you to breaking a finger while stitching an outfit! Was that your x-ray that you put on one of your t-shirts?
“No, that was Tony Kanal’s [No Doubt bassist and Gwen's ex]. He broke hisfinger and sent me the x-ray, so I did a t-shirt saying ‘Broken’ and the x-ray printed on it!”

Your stage clothes are really incredible, too. What happens to them after a tour?
“I auction them to my fans to raise money for charity. It’s very exciting to be able to share them in this way and do some good.”

What do you like to do when you get a day off from your hectic pop-star life?
“I absolutely love to watch TV and my favourite channel is Discovery Health. I also like those reality shows where they do makeovers on people – it’s fun to see the before and after comparisons!”

We’re hooked on reality shows too! What’s your fave snack food while you’re watching telly?
“Oh I love food! I’m weak for cookies and pizza, so I will have a little here and there.”

Living in the spotlight must be tough, though?
“It can be frustrating and hard sometimes but I’ve been really lucky to have Gavin [her hubby, British rock star and actor Gavin Rossdale]. He relates to and understands what I’m going through and knows what the music business is like.”

Your song Wind It Up samples a song from The Sound Of Music and you dress up like Maria in the video. IS it your fave musical?
“I love Julie Andrews [who played Maria in the original film]. And I remember when I was a little girl and went to see the movie, it was such a huge inspiration for me. There are loads of references to it in my video.”

And finally – one more question about fashion! You seem to be a lot more down to earth than the average fashionista, so how do you feel about your “style icon” status?
“I think that I’ve been able to fool a lot of people into thinking I’m pretty hip, but in reality I’m just a big dork! I’m just an Orange County girl from a loving family, making music with my friends!”

Gwen – dressed to impress

“I remember when I was in school, they’d ask, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ And then you’d have to draw a picture of it. I drew myself as a bride.”

“Now I’m a mother, I think I should always dress as a character for my children, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella.”

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice your performance for high heels”

“Being in music, you can wear whatever you want – it’s like an excuse for Hallowe’en every day!”

“I’d like to be one of the guys, but I wanna wear a lot of make-up”

Gwen’s favourite things

Favourite Food “Sushi”

Fave make-up “Bright-red Lipstick”

Best Place to live “California and then London”

Favourite song on your new album “4 In The Morning”

Best chillout place “The park, ’cause it’s peaceful”

Fave fashion designer “Vivienne Westwood. I might as well just go there and hand over my entire pay-cheque, I spend so much money there!”

Fave theatre show “The Sound Of Music”

Favourite band “No Doubt, of course! My intention is to get back into the studio and record with them again.”

Fave sport “Swimming. I used to swim in for my high school.”

Favourite saying “Workin’ it!”

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 received some jolting news this week while in Toronto to promote her sophomore solo album, “The Sweet Escape,” due in stores next Tuesday.

The pop superstar and her baby arrived in the city from the U.K. on a British Airways jet Tuesday, and later learned that traces of radiation that recently killed a former Russian spy had been found in some of the airline’s jets.

“We might have radiation too,” Stefani, 37, said with a slight grin when asked about the revelation in an interview on Thursday, her last day in the city. “No, I’m just kidding. I hope not.”

It’s not the first time the front woman for ska-punk outfit No Doubt, known for her signature red lipstick and platinum-blond hair, has faced drama while trying to visit fans in Canada.

Last winter, one of the production equipment buses for her Harajuku Lovers solo tour rolled over three times while on its way to Canada. Stefani was four months pregnant at the time.

The driver was OK, said Stefani, but they couldn’t salvage much of the gear.

“I was literally on the bus going, `What are we going to do? Half of our equipment’s in the snow,’ ” a flawless-looking Stefani said in a chair in a hotel room while her six-month-old son, Kingston, was being watched by a nanny in a bedroom nearby.

“Even though we didn’t have production, the shows were the best shows of the whole tour. The biggest and the best.”

“The Sweet Escape” is Stefani’s followup to her 2004 debut solo effort, “Love.Angel.Music.Baby,” which went quadruple-platinum with the hits “Hollaback Girl” and “What You Waiting For?”

R and B singer Akon produced and sang on the title track, Pharrell Williams co-wrote many of the tracks and sang on one, and No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal wrote three songs on the album. Hip-hop producers the Neptunes, who worked on No Doubt’s 2001 album “Rock Steady,” also had a prominent role in the making of the disc.

Stefani said her son was with her in the studio throughout the recording process.

“He was just like, sitting right there in a basket,” said the fashion-forward singer, who wants to have at least one more baby.

“He just kind of sleeps and then wakes up and nurses and I put him back and he’s so easy, he’s not like a cry baby. Although he does now have more of an attitude.”

The first single, “Wind It Up,” has Stefani yodelling over marching band beats peppered with traditional Swiss music – a homage to her favourite movie, “The Sound of Music.”

The video for the song includes the Harajuku Girls, a group of wildly dressed Japanese backup dancers Stefani trekked around with for her last tour and will do so again for her spring tour.

Her new monogram – a gold wind-up key with diamond-encrusted Gs for Gwen — is also a major theme in the video, and Stefani said she would consider selling the key under her Harajuku clothing line.

“Harajuku was more like a glorified merchandise line, like how bands used to put out T-shirts with their picture on it,” said Stefani, wearing skinny jeans, a fitted black sweater, Harajuku-style high, high heels and the wind-up key on a chain.

The California native did confirm that she will put out a fragrance next year under her other fashion label, L.A.M.B., launched in 2003.

“I’m just still working on it. I have practice ones on,” she said, smelling her wrists while aromatic candles flickered around the room.

Stefani, who has homes in Los Angeles and London with rocker husband and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale, also plans to return to No Doubt some day.

But unlike her last tour, she would never go on the road again with a baby bump.

“I did notice that you get really short of breath, like, especially when you’re first pregnant,” said Stefani, who admitted to feeling “so gross” at times in her maternity days.

“So when I was touring it was like really hard because it was like, nine costume changes, corsets, the whole thing, tights, you know, it was high heels, it was really challenging.”

“The Sweet Escape” tour is slated to start in April and will take Stefani through Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

She’s the consummate multi-tasker

Grammy-winning frontwoman of No Doubt, multiplatinum solo artist, deisgner of two clothing lines, wife of rocker Gavin Rossdale and, in less than two months, mother of their first child. Last week, at home in her 1923 Spanish-style home in Los Feliz, Ca., Gwen Stefani still looked the part, wearing maternity jeans, a vintage sweater dress belted above her bump and Rasta-hued Christian Louboutin espadrilles. In her first sit-down interview since announcing her pregnancy, Stefani opened up about her music, her fashion career, her body and her great expectations.
You seem happy to be hanging out at home.
I love this place so much. I’ve been here since about 1998, right after the Tragic Kingdom album. I moved out of my parents’ house into this, and I finally got my studio done. But obviously, we’re probably going to to have to move once I have the baby. My husband wants to write songs, and there’s no more room. He can’t have a studio next to the baby’s room. This house is really great for singing if you’re the only person in it.

How are you feeling today?
Right now I’m sort of in lazy mode. I’m obsessed with watching TV and eating [laughs]. But seriously, this is great. It’s the first time I’ve had to focus on designing since I’ve kind of put the music on hold, and it’s been really fun. Everyone comes to the house and we sit here in the living room and have cookies and design. It feels good not to be double-dipping the whole time, because when you are performing, touring and doing appearances, it’s hard to balance both. It takes a lot of energy. The week before, I worked on L.A.M.B. spring 2007 three full days straight and we rolled into Harajuku Lovers that Thursday. After a certain point, it gets hard to see straight.

Compare Harajuku Lovers and L.A.M.B.
There’s nothing to be compared about the two, but at the same time, it’s a challenge for them not to copy each other, because they’re both me. L.A.M.B.’s my serious art project and my passion, and Harajuku Lovers is part of a bigger picture. With music, you do the actual songs, the videos, the artwork, the Web site and now you can do clothes to go with it. So that’s all one big creative pile.

Describe the creative process behind L.A.M.B.
I used to get really bummed about having to drop something, or if things didn’t work out. Now I just realize it’s going to come, and if I don’t get to it in one collection, I can do it in the next. It’s not as hard as music because the ideas just seem to come. With [fall 2006] for instance, a girlfriend of mine wore this dress when we were in Lake Como doing the video for ”Cool” and it became one of the inspirations, a toal 1950s, Marilyn Monroe-on-the-beach thing. It was very specific, whereas [spring 2007] is a little broader, but it definitely has a theme. I don’t want to give it away, but we just did the sketches and it’s going really well.

What do you love most about designing?
It’s not the outcome or the product. At the end of the day, it’s the actual process that I enjoy and it’s also the potential with everything. It’s the same with songwriting. I never listen to the record, but I listen to the demos an embarrassing amount of times because it’s the potential of what the song could be or what a bag could be.

What do bags mean to you?
I never carried a bag before I did the LeSportSac line. I just always felt like it was too much of a fiddly, girly thing. I’ve been in a band for 20 years years with all guys. I had a backpack, you know? Now I feel I never will have enough bags because when I leave the house, [paparazzi] always take pictures, and if I wear a bag like two or three times, they are like, ‘Whoa, she’s wearing the same bag!’ But so does everyone else.

What is it like to see girls and women wearing your products?
At first it was really uncomfortable putting it out there, but the reaction was so warm. It’s not quite as emotional [as music], but when you find something that’s your thing… I’ve seen people own those bags like they made them, walking across the street like it defines who they are. And that’s where it started.

Even after seven L.A.M.B. collections, do you ever feel like a fashion novice?
I didn’t go to school for this, but making clothes is something I’ve done my whole life, so it’s not new to me – but at this level, of course, it’s brand new. I don’t know anything, but I enjoy that and the whole vibe of the fashion world, even though I don’t know the rules. I’m just making my thing and hope that people enjoy it and apprecaite the stage I’m at. You can’t expect it to be anything more than it is.

What’s next, design-wise?
With L.A.M.B., I definitely want to focus on the bags, but I’m still doing the tennis shoes. I also convinced the tennis shoes to make boots, and now we are doing stilettos. I’m also doing watches. You can imagine the amount of artwork and e-mails that I have to approve, so I don’t really want to take on too much. But I want to do lingerie and makeup at some point. I want to do everything, eventually.

What about baby clothes?
It’s easy to downsize for kids and babies in Harajuku Lovers, but apart from that, I’m not going there. But we are doing some L.A.M.B. baby tennis shoes, little gold ones. You wouldn’t believe it. They are so cute. They are ridiculous.

How are you dealing with your ever-changing shape?
I’m sick of maternity clothes, but people are really sweet. No matter how big I feel, they say, ‘Well, you look cute’.  My body’s changing every week. I’ve gained eight pounds in the last month alone, but it’s all going to be worth it. And my husband has made me some really great meals and I’ve been eating whatever I want, trying to enjoy the moment. There’s only one time it happens for the first time.

Is it hard for someone as active as you to see yourself gain weight and slow down when all you want to do is jump around?
Well, I’m looking forward to my [post-pregnancy] diet. And then I’m going to train. But I have been working out. That’s the one thing I’ve been strict about, three days a week with a trainer. You should have seen me try to work out this morning. Oh, my God, it’s getting so hard. I do those stairs up there [pointing to the terraced steps behind her house].

What’s next, music-wise?
I have some songs that are left over from my last record, and I wrote four new songs as I was finishing it. One of them is called ”Orange County Girl”, which is one of my favorite songs ever. It’s really close to being done, but as time goes by, I might have to write some new ones to freshen it up. I went in the studio and I’ve been trying to write, but it just hasn’t come, so I’ve finally gotten to a place of guilt-free relaxation. I will try again, but now is obviously not the right time. But I want to put that record out. It would be a waste not to.

What about No Doubt?
I’m going to go back in the studio with the band to try and see what we can do together, which is going to be a huge, weird reunion. We don’t know if we go back what kind of music we’ll write, if we can write. We just don’t know. And then, being a mom… I don’t know what that’s going to be like.

It seems like a very transitional time for you.
Yes, everything is new for me right now, It’s a weird crossroads, the beginning of a lot, the closure of a lot. This is all about nesting and getting inspired. But [making a downward whooshing motion above her belly] I know one thing is coming out for sure!

Gwen Stefani

Fabric Kingdom

Gwen Stefani is late. Her very first L.A.M.B. fashion show is set to start at 8 p.m. at New York’s Roseland Ballroom, and it’s already 8:45. There are so many celebrities — Diddy, Ashanti, Damon Dash, Kelly Osbourne, Nicky Hilton — that some even spill over from the coveted front row into (gasp!) the second row. But celeb or no, everyone’s in the same boat — sitting and waiting, listening to the overture from “The Sound of Music,” which has been played so many times that people start whispering that no one ever needs to see that movie again.

As the house lights dim, an ominous guitar sounds and a black light falls on four cars that are hiked up hydraulically and parked on the catwalk, which start honking as their white sheets are pulled off and models emerge from inside. And instead of a straight take on “The Sound of Music” score, it’s now become a remix, incorporating bits and pieces not only of Gwen’s music (with three new songs as well as a few recognizable ones from Love, Angel, Music, Baby) but also tracks from her husband Gavin Rossdale’s new band, Institute.

Model after model proceeds down the walkway, which is sprinkled with white powder and glitter, wearing flowing dresses and gowns with prints of snakeskin, chrysanthemum and wisteria, as the song mix incorporates the looks parading by: “Wisteria blossom/ Creeping through my heart …”

The outfits keep coming — gangster trench coats, scalloped blazers, pencil skirts, cropped jodhpurs, track pants, drawstring blouses — and various “looks” begin to emerge. Like something Gwen calls “Gatsby Rasta,” combining patrician English countryside wear with a Rastafarian color scheme, and another she calls “Pirate Trooper,” a look inspired by paratrooper jumpsuits and Vivienne Westwood’s 1970s buccaneers. After the last piece is modeled — a mix silk wedding gown — Gwen takes her turn on the runway. To the chorus of “Hollaback Girl,” she walks out, all smiles and waves, pantomime tears running down her face, and, mouthing the words to her song, raises her arms in victory, bows and walks off.

“Just don’t wake me up!” Gwen gushes afterwards, hanging out backstage with a crowd of reporters and well-wishers. “Because I’m saying, that was pretty great. That was beyond any dream I’ve ever had. It was so incredible, just to be able to have a show and to be able to share it with everyone in that kind of way … and all these unbelievable, beautiful, tall skinny girls that I just want to hit because they’re so pretty, walking in the clothes. It was extraordinary.”

So extraordinary that it cost a million dollars — which she was luckily able to convince Sony Computer Entertainment to pony up, in exchange for placing promotional PSPs in the front-row seats.

This blown-out fashion extravaganza is a far cry from her more humble beginnings as a teenager in Anaheim, California, in the heart of Orange County. There, she’d follow her mother to the fabric store and her mom would let her choose her own buttons, zippers, and threads and encouraged her to make her own clothes. Gwen’s taste evolved, and she went from wearing tomboyish overalls, jumpers, and baseball caps to finding pegged men’s pajama bottoms and making corset-style drop-waist dresses with cheerleader skirts, which she’d pair with boxer shorts, fishnets and Doc Martens. “That was it,” Gwen says. “Suddenly you hit puberty, and it’s like, you know, thrift stores! I just started deconstructing everything from thrift stores.”

When No Doubt began, Gwen even made the band’s costumes. But once people started noticing the clothes, she’d clam up; she didn’t want the focus to be on that — not when No Doubt were trying to be noticed for their music. “I always used to be so embarrassed talking about style,” she explains. “I’d be like, ‘You know, it’s not something you’re supposed to talk about, it’s like, you look at it, it’s a visual.’ Plus, I was never a fashion person. I didn’t read fashion magazines, I was always a thrift-store girl, really anti-supermodels and models. It was like, ‘Oh, you can’t get those clothes [you see in magazines]! If you find them, they’re only in size 4 and super expensive!’ ”

So she made her own clothes. And she’s still doing that, in a way, with L.A.M.B. — she only makes clothes she’d want to wear herself. “I wasn’t going to do the Target line,” Gwen says. “I wasn’t going to do a line for my fans because they were so cheap. I want to make stuff for myself. It’s a kinda selfish thing … I am very selfish!”

L.A.M.B. certainly doesn’t come at Target prices — pieces range from $75 to $950. But because Gwen is not trying to cater to anyone but herself, the L.A.M.B. looks always have an authentic Gwen stamp — down to the gothic-print lyrics often imprinted on the hems, collars, and the fronts of dresses. The exchange goes both ways — references to fashion and designers are throughout her debut album, especially in the song “Harajuku Girls,” which lists such cutting-edge Japanese labels as Super Lovers, Bathing Ape and Hysteric Glamour as well as established designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano, among others. (“What’s that you got on? Is it Comme des Garcons?”) The song is a check list of the things she loves in fashion, and the listener has to wonder: Which came first, the style or the song?

“I think it all kinda comes from the same place, you know? It really does,” Gwen says. “You write a song, you create a piece of art, clothing, it all kinda comes from the same place for me. I love design and I love creating something from nothing, whether it be music or clothes or painting or any of these things.”

Gwen’s next offering is her Harajuku Lovers line of more affordable clothing and novelty merchandise, featuring products relating to her song lyrics, such as bubble gum, banana-shaped erasers, and lip gloss. It’s already available in Kitson, and it will be in Urban Outfitters this fall. And while it’s not exactly her version of a low-rent Target line, it is an acknowledgement that her fans might not be able to afford the couture from L.A.M.B., which is now available in more than 200 stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom and already selling in the $40 million range per year. She’s not yet at the same level as Diddy’s Sean John line, which sells about $400 million annually, or Jennifer Lopez’s Sweetface line, which sells in the $200 million range — but she’s determined to get there. This current spring/summer collection is her fifth, and she already has the next one, for fall ‘06, in the can.

Fashion could be a nice fallback for Gwen if she ever decides to hang up the mic. But she says that at least for right now, she’s just doing it for fun. “It’s more of a passion, just something I like to do and find pleasure in. And it’s such a passion for me that I could just do that full-time if I took out all the other things that I do,” she says. “It’s different than music, but it still has the same kind of reward in a way. There’s something about the process, of creating it, that’s what I love. It’s fun to wear the clothes, but it’s kind of like making cookies. At the end of the day, the cookie? Whatever, I already ate 14 scoops of the dough!

“I’m very much like a baby at the whole thing,” she adds. “It feels like everything up until this point has been me learning and trying to get my feet around the whole design thing. But now, here we go!”

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…”

Gwen Stefani has a platinum album, a red-hot clothing line, and a solo tour. Never has world domination seemed so cute. By Deanna Kizis.

Gwen Stefani’s home sits atop a steep driveway in Los Angeles, like a butter cream-frosted castle complete with a turret, bougainvillea vines, bathing pools, and fountains. When I ring the bell to announce my presence, her Minnie Mouse voice drifts down from a balcony above: “Hold on! I’m not ready yet!” A moment later Stefani – pop superstar, body beautiful, famous wife of Gavin Rossdale – bounds down her wrought iron staircase, her bare feet slapping the terracotta tile. Her bottle blond hair is pinned on one side like a Vargas pinup girl. Her famous abs, just visible between her white tank top and jeans, are tan and taut. Stefani’s fully made-up – brow pencil, foundation, blush – and in her pocket are not one but two golden-hued lip glosses, which she sweeps across her lips as frequently as some hipsters light cigarettes.

After wiggling her way into the vaulted-ceiling living room and apologizing profusely for the mess (a glance around the black-and-white-tiled kitchen and the dining room with its Moorish chairs and dripping candles reveals no disarray to speak of), Stefani fills a tumbler of pink Vitamin-water for each of us and plops on a white overstuffed couch, then jumps off again to see if she can find a missing pearl earring on the floor. “I’m such a dick when it comes to keeping track of stuff,” she says, her butt in the air and her head somewhere underneath the side table. She lost the engagement ring Rossdale gave her four years ago after putting it on a nightstand before bed, hearing it drop to the floor, and never seeing it again. As Stefani wriggles under the furniture, it’s impossible not to notice that at home she doesn’t glide the way she does on the red carpet, nor does she stomp the way she does on stage. Here she wiggles. She plops.

Stefani, who has been having her moment for the past decade as the lead singer of the unstoppable band No Doubt, is having another heyday with her multi-platinum solo record Love, Angel, Music, Baby. At the time of this interview, she has been nominated for six MTV Video Music Awards, her singles “Cool,” “Hollaback Girl,” “Rich Girl,” and “What You Waiting For?” are getting constant airplay, and she’s about to go on her first solo tour. As if that weren’t enough, this month Stefani, who already owns her own clothing company, is launching a new product line with Sanrio, the billion-dollar Japanese empire behind Hello Kitty. She’s so excited about Harajuku Lovers, her T-shirts, cell-phone charms, stickers, and other ephemera featuring four characters based on her team of Japanese back-up dancers, that she spontaneously does a little bump-and-grind, shaking her hips and sing-songing, “I am. So happy! Mmmm-hmmmm.” Stefani proudly shows me the website – the tagline is “A fatal attraction to cuteness” – which features an animated town where one can shop and navigate a faux Harajuku shopping district (inspired by the real one in Tokyo). Stefani will be peddling everything from stationery to $250 Hewlett Packard cameras, and no part of the cow will go unused: the products refer back to her music, using lyrics from songs and visual clues from her videos. She’ll be taking the Harajuku Lovers products on tour so fans can buy more than the usual concert T-shirt. “everyone should be doing something creative like this,” Stefani says, clicking various cutesy icons on her site. “I get so inspired by things – like the way Harajuku girls dress in Japan. Everything I am is one big stolen good. Once you filter it through yourself, it becomes yours.”

It seems as if the torch for “new inspiring female icon” was passed from Madonna to Stefani when the singer achieved instant fame with the anti-sexism anthem “Just a Girl” in 1995. Her image – one part riot grrrl in bondage pants, one part post-apocalyptic Marilyn Monroe – is something she has cultivated, even though Stefani refuses to call herself a feminist. “Before I could say whether or not I am one,” she says, “I’d need an exact definition of what the term ‘feminist’ means.” Her provocative look, she says, simply evolved over the years – from her high school days when she liked to make her own clothes (“My room was the danger zone; if you went in there you were definitely going to get pins in your feet”) to touring with No Doubt, when the punk buckles and ska plaids came into full effect. Finally exposed to stylists on video shoots and encouraged by her British husband to dress more fashionably, Stefani found she had an interest in couture. “I didn’t know about high fashion at all, but you start learning you know?” Stefani says in her SoCal cadence. “Gavin changed me a lot, too; you dress for whomever you’re trying to impress, and he really hated my yellow bondage pants.” She laughs. The result is that Stefani looks more powerful than ever, playing with stereotypes on stage in, say,, an Alice in Wonderland costume with a garter belt and pink Christian Dior heels while she sings about her baby lust.

Stefani will allow that the term “feminist” relates in some way to her; when she was younger, she says, she was passive, a mediocre student, and obsessed with her boyfriend. “I was going out with Tony [Kanal, the bassist in No Doubt], and my whole life was Tony, Tony, Tony,” she says. “So when we broke up, I started writing songs about it, and I realized I wasn’t even a human being until I discovered I could write. Plus, the people around me thought my input, business-wise, wasn’t important just because I was a woman. That changed everything.”

This realization showed her a way to distinguish herself from angry female acts such as Hole and Sarah McLachlan/Jewel songbirds. She still maintains her anti-sexism, girl-power image, and it’s entirely intentional; she wrote “Hollaback Girl” (in which Stefani declares that she’s done with female backstabbing and suggests that she can either rise above criticism or settle things the old-fashioned way) at the last possible moment, jumping on a plane from London to New York so she could work with producer Pharrell Williams, because she realized her album was missing a “don’t fuck with me” track.

The fact that Stefani is hawking cell-phone charms and powder blue cameras may seem inconsistent, until you consider that she’s a consummate girlie girl, so obsessed with feminine accoutrements that she admits she puts lipstick on before she goes for a jog. “I love being able to get people to go off,” Stefani says, “but I’m the girl who sold makeup at the dollar makeup mall in high school.” Thus, it makes sense that Stefani would be attracted to Japanese “cute” culture (or “Kawaii”). Stefani doesn’t tend to over-intellectualize, but this too could be considered a feminist act; overtly feminine items like pink Hello Kitty vacuums subvert the stereotype. “We like Gwen Stefani’s strength and that she’s cute,” says Linda Scott, author of Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism (Palgrave Macmillan) and associate professor of women’s studies, advertising, and art at the University of Illinois. “She’s essentially able to ‘own her girlness.’ Women consider that courageous.”

On the other hand, Stefani’s closed-lipped stance on women’s politics irks some feminists. “She’s like Madonna in terms of using clothes for self-expression,” allows Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press). “But she goes out of her way to avoid being a complicated persona. You have to project ideas onto her in order to see greater goals.” Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with that. Adds Levy: “Gwen Stefani is fun. I see pictures of her and I’m like, ‘That’s an amazing getup.’ But I don’t know that she’s taking womankind forward. She could, but she’s resolutely invested in not doing that.”

At first Stefani talks somewhat openly about her ten-year relationship with Rossdale. “We’ve been married three years now,” she says with a bubbly giggle. “Can you believe it?” She says they think of themselves as a team, so as she goes on tour in mega-venues and he hits the road, playing intimate clubs with his new band, Institute, this doesn’t manifest itself as competition. “I just went to Miami for two weeks to write songs, and he stayed in London,” she says. “It’s cool because when we’re not together we go full force – I’ll stay at the studio until all hours – and then when we finally are back together we just crash, lie in bed, and watch TV.” When asked how to keep a long-term relationship vital, she replies, “I don’t have any marital advice to give. I’m like, marriage is just hard. If you work, you get the results.” The work must be paying off: Later Stefani will go watch Rossdale film a music video in the San Fernando Valley in 100-degree heat, and her face lights up – she tells a story about the time her husband walked in with his shirt yanked up under his armpits when Stefani’s stylist was at the house. “Girls were screaming,” she says. “I was like, ‘Damn, honey, you can’t walk around like that! We have horny women in here.’ ”

Stefani is known for writing personal reflections in her lyrics (Tragic Kingdom was essentially a musical journal about her breakup with Kanal). With “What You Waiting For?” a runaway hit – in which she sings about being caught between wanting a child but also wanting to enjoy her fame and glory while it lasts – the world has put her on baby-watch. “I get asked when I’m having a baby in every interview,” she says. “Like today, I talked to these morning-show radio announcers” – she puts on her best DJ voice – ” ‘Gwen! So! When are you going to have a baby!’ ” She shakes her head.

It does sound irritating. And yet when she performs “Waiting,” she holds her hands out as though her entire body is an entire ticking biological clock while singing lyrics like, “Take a chance you stupid ho/ look at your watch now!/ You’re still a super hot female!” She’s 35, and like-minded women may have gotten the message that it’s OK to engage Stefani in discussion about choosing between her career and family.

“I guess,” she says with a shrug. “But even you asking me is weird ’cause I don’t know you.”

Stefani gre up so close to the Disneyland theme park that the ashes from the nightly fireworks show landed in her backyard. (Her parents still live in the house where she grew up.) Disney references are all over her work. “That’s what happens when you grow up across the street,” she says. Besides the title of the record Tragic Kingdom, the Alice in Wonderland costumes,a dn the Pirates of the Caribbean set in her “Rich Girl” video, she is like one of Disneyland’s beloved characters: sweet, inspiring, adorable, funny, charming – all the things you’d expect her to be. But she can be serious and protective of her privacy. After Stefani shows me some gorgeous black-and-white photos Herb Ritts took of her and Rossdale as a wedding present (“He’s hot, huh?”) that sit atop a grand piano at the far end of the living room, I press her to tell me more about her personal life, with the intention of going deeper. But she gets upset. “Maybe you should just quit while you’re ahead, huh?” she asks, her voice hitting a higher register. “Before you start asking questions I really don’t want to answer.”

She doesn’t yell, but she tries to keep her cool, and doesn’t quite pull it off. The effect is bracing. Considering her strong but vulnerable persona, I want to comfort her, to apologize. Then I find myself bewildered. Isn’t the Hollaback Girl tougher than this? I want to ask, but decide to take her advice.

Stefani is much more relaxed when we’re talking about her future plans, like the fact that she wants to do another film (her first cameo was as Jean Harlow in The Aviator), and that she might release a second solo album next year given the positive reaction to the first. Perhaps not surprisingly, Stefani is trying to keep her personal life out of her writing these days. “It’s not like it was back when I wrote Tragic Kingdom,” she says. “I mean, now, being famous, it will never be the same.” Which isn’t to say that she’s succeeding. “Last week I was with Pharrell, writing this track about dancing, and he kept coming up with these great dance one-liner clichés like ‘Shake that ass’ or whatever. I was like, ‘How did you think of that?’ I came up with all this heartfelt stuff.”

As I leave Stefani’s house, I remember a Disneyland memory of my own: Back when I was little, I took a wrong turn and caught Minnie Mouse taking off her head, revealing, inside the plush costume, a regular lady with her hair in a sweaty ponytail. I screamed in terror and broke out in disappointed tears, the spell broken. Like Minnie, Gwen Stefani may be incomprehensibly different under her Gwen Stefani suit. She is a business woman with a marketing plan and an image to protect. And she may be less carefree and more fragile at times than she appears.

Of course, whether it’s weird for Stefani or not, we all still want to know when the Gwen and Gavin Baby-Watch will be replaced by the patter of little rocker feet. Stefani does make a definite promise, which is also a demand: “When I get pregnant, I will tell everybody, trust me,” she says shortly before I depart, her sweetly sassy attitude back in place. “And I want a big friggin’ shower. OK?”