No Doubt Scrapbook

Blonde ambition

From pop-punk queen to fashion icon, Gwen Stefani has forged a one-woman empire. She exclusively tells ELLE’s Kerry Potter about her rock-star marriage, being a beauty junkie and how hard she’s worked for that body.

Four hours in hair and make-up and Gwen Stefani, 37-year-old multimillion-selling rock star and fashion icon, finally takes centre stage at the ELLE photoshoot. She’s immaculately painted, cartoonishly flawless and Amazonian in stature. White-blonde hair fiercely straightened, wearing a tiny pair of shorts with giant heels, she glares at the camera as her entourage (stylist, hairdresser, make-up artist, US record company execs, nanny) look on silently. So far, so intimidating, until we’re introduced and she immediately breaks into a broad, sunshiney smile. ‘Hey there!’ she says in a girlish all-American drawl and takes my hand. A few days later, we meet again, at a hotel, and this time I remember not to judge a book by its cover. Gwen turns out remarkably unassuming, chatty, free of pretentious pronouncements about her ‘art’, and strangely honest about everything - from how hard she works to stay trim to the problems with a long-distance love affair (she’s married to Brit Gavin Rossdale, former singer in Rock band Bush). Read the rest of this article »

Escape Artist

Platinum pop star Gwen Stefani talks about her hit addiction, yodeling fantasies, and how she kicked her Madonna habit. Now she prepares to conquer the world, with baby in tow. By Joseph Hooper.

You know the story: Blonde Italian-American pop diva, music video eminence, and all-round material girl marries a Brit artiste and moves to England. The relationship hits some bumps along the way, but a baby boy ensues and celebrity life keeps rolling. “It is weird that we have all these similarities,” Gwen Stefani allows as she nestles on a couch in one of the many rooms her entourage has taken in London’s Landmark hotel in mid-November. With a voice that hovers somewhere between sultry and Kewpie doll, the singer has a knack for sounding about seven years old: “Madonna’s had us over to dinner and stuff, and she’s always been very nice to me.” Read the rest of this article »

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 »

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 Stefani has had our hearts for more than a decade as a singer/songwriter with her band No Doubt. Now with a new solo CD charting, Stefani is taking off as screen legend Jean Harlow in the Howard Hughes bio-pic The Aviator. “The part isn’t big,” says Stefani, “but it doesn’t matter. I’m working with the greatest people.” Don’t worry, Gwen. It won’t be long before everyone knows you’ve always been a star.

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 »

Bound for glory

Ska-punk siren Gwen Stefani is about to go stellar with a debut solo album and a plum role in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. But GQ managed to tie her down… By Charlie Porter. Photographs by Marc Hom.

Gwen Stefani is sitting in a Mercedes and she’s fizzing, fast words, few pauses. “The record is ridiculous. It is RI-DI-CU-LOUS.” Ridiculous, in her native Orange County, California speak, appears to be a very good thing. We’re driving away from the photoshoot at an abandoned riverside building in deepest south London, where the basement rooms feel like dungeons and the sparse furniture includes what seems to be a miniature bondage chair, rope knotted tight across its frame. Would she sit on it for GQ? Stefani strides up and straddles it, happy to oblige. 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 »