No Doubt Scrapbook

Gwen Stefani: Blonde with Extra Bottle

Madonna thinks she is ripping her off but who is the bigger star now?

When Madonna accused Gwen Stefani of copying her style last week - “She ripped me off. She married a Brit, she’s got blonde hair and she likes fashion” - it seemed like business as usual. With a new album to promote, her Madgeness has a habit of slapping down her best friends/rivals. But this time it was personal. Because for many, Stefani is the new Madonna, and her new solo album, Love.Angel.Music.Baby, is the album Madonna should have made. Read the rest of this article »

Crazy Sexy Cool

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. Read the rest of this article »

She’s just a girl

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”). Read the rest of this article »

Gwen Stefani: “I’m a very different girl than I used to be”

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. Read the rest of this article »

Everyone has a view on Gwen Stefani:

She’s a punk-rock pin-up, a female David Bowie, the new princess of pop, a style icon, a hip-hop superstar, a movie starlet, the red-carpet goddess, a cultural chameleon. Just don’t call her a faker…

“What I would say to those people,” spits Stefani in her helium-tipped Cali-purr, “is do your research. I was in a band with all guys since I was 16 years old. I’ve been in a fucking rock band touring the fucking world for eighteen years. So if you’re gonna try and erase that, then I’m gonna stick my finger right up in your face. ‘Cos you know what? I did it. And you try and be a girl and do that in 1987. Read the rest of this article »

Gwen’s Secrets

Her cutting-edge evolving style inspires fashion trends everywhere. Here, Gwen Stefani speaks candidly about her evolution from offbeat rocker to chic sophisticate, her introduction to couture and why John Galliano made her cry. By Phoebe Eaton.

Her eyes cast toward heaven in one of her trademark blessed-virgin-in-ecstasy poses, Gwen Stefani is feeling secretly jet-laggy as she mambos through Harper Bazaar’s photoshoot, where three security guards are on hand to monitor the glistening piles of jewelry that - these days - Gwen’s retrosexual looks seem to demand.

Her hair is definitely platinum, her eyelashes comb-ably thick and her mouth painted a subtle, meet-the-parents pink. As she dances to her first solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby, No Doubt’s 35-year-old lead singer-songwriter shows she still has those wicked washboard abs and hard-won tummy dimples that Pilates instructors like to refer to as Apollo’s belt. Read the rest of this article »

Gwen cuts loose

The reigning queen of rock & roll is flying solo for the first time in her career, and life is pretty sweet. It’s also an emotional roller coaster.

The lobby of New York’s Mercer Hotel is a haven of downtown chic - all angular furniture in shades of eggplant, with oblong over-sized lampshades atop carved wooden posts. A wall lined with bookshelves displays volumes on Toulouse Lautrec, Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol alongside studies of designers Vivienne Ta, and Salvatore Ferragamo and anthologies on modernist architecture. The place is, as Gwen Stefani puts it, “super-frickin’ trendy cool,” the kind of hotel where everybody pretends not to notice when Nicky Hilton saunters past the reception desk. Read the rest of this article »

Gwen Born Again!

She’s hot, she’s the most beloved pop star in America, and now No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani is about to break out as a solo artist and Hollywood actress. Story by Jessica Hundley, Photography by Mark Squires, Styling by Andrea Lieberman.

She’s not the new Madonna. Sure, there are similarities - the platinum blond hair, silent screen vamping, the ever-evolving, always iconic style. But Gwen Stefani is defiantly her own woman. Rather than strained self-seriousness and ice-cool divadom, Stefani possesses the air of a girl midway down the first drop of a really badass roller coaster, an air of glee and triumph and just a touch of wonder, as if she still can’t quite believe she dared get on the ride in the first place. Read the rest of this article »

What a Year! The best (and worst) of 2004

Introducing Gwen Stefani as our chick of the year. By Parker Ray.

It’s hard to believe that this is Gwen Stefani’s first gay press interview - especially considering how much we queer boys love our stylish, ballsy, independent, hard-working, trendsetting, pop star blondes (real or dyed). So much so they can all be addressed by their first names: Madonna, Debbie, Britney, Christina, Kylie.

But there is a difference between the ladies above and Gwen. She nails it when she tells Instinct, “I don’t feel like I’m very controversial, I don’t want to upset people. I just want to make them feel good.” Read the rest of this article »

Blonde on blonde

Gwen Stefani has ditched No Doubt in a bid to be the next Madonna. Complete with English husband and questionable movie career.

“My album will probably end up being called Fuck You or something,” shrugs Gwen Stefani and then cackles for a while, shattering the silence of her floor-to-ceiling white suite in the sickly contemporary St Martin’s Lane Hotel. Read the rest of this article »