Vanessa Paradis: The Muse

i.D. Spring 2011

Vanessa Paradis is a dark beauty. She smolders in front of Paolo Roversi’s lens for i.D. in Vanessa Paradis: The Muse.  From her Lolita-esque debut to the very embodiment of Parisian chic, the singer and actress Vanessa Paradis - aka Mrs Johnny Depp - has come a long way. [An audience with Vanessa Paradis/Justine Picardie]

i.D. Spring 2011

To the French she is a national icon in her own right - child star turned chic chanteuse; Chanel model; award-winning actress - but to the English-speaking world, she tends to be more famous as Mrs Johnny Depp. Not that Vanessa Paradis is married; a marriage certificate might detract from her identity. [An audience with Vanessa Paradis/Justine Picardie]

i.D. Spring 2011

At 38, Vanessa Chantal Paradis is a force to be reckoned with, her presence far greater than her breathy little-girl voice might at first suggest.  She's gorgeous-looking, of course - men and women alike in the audience, whatever their sexual orientation, are smitten as Paradis undulates across the stage - but as a performer she is unselfish, introducing each of her band by name, and swift to share the limelight with them. [An audience with Vanessa Paradis/Justine Picardie]

i.D. Spring 2011

Still, despite the apparent intimacy - for she has an uncanny ability to make it seem as if she is singing on a one-to-one basis - Paradis is also deft at maintaining her distance off-stage.  'The key thing about Vanessa is not what she does but how she does it,' says Karl Lagerfeld. 'She could make singing the telephone directory beautiful.' [An audience with Vanessa Paradis/Justine Picardie]

i.D. Spring 2011

Love, she observes, 'is something natural that needs to be worked at a little bit all the same'. As a formula, however reductive, it might very well be applied to Vanessa Paradis herself. [An audience with Vanessa Paradis/Justine Picardie]