Kim Kardashian - Alyssa Giacobbe

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THE K FACTOR
Fearless in the face of public scrutiny and a hopeless romantic in a
cynical age, everywoman Kim Kardashian is impossible to define. At a
shoot at Bruce Weber’s Miami home inspired by his much-missed friend
Elizabeth Taylor, writer Alyssa Giacobbe asks,
is this Kim’s golden era?
PHOTOGRAPHED by Bruce Weber Styled by Deborah Watson
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threat, Jon Hamm said something much worse—but
seemingly everyone follows her in some way, at entirely unprecedented levels. Even Jerry Stiller and Anne
Meara have a Kardashian-inspired comedy bit. “If the
United States had a royal family,” went a question on
a recent episode of Family Feud, “who would it be?”
The Kardashians came in fifth, following the names
Kennedy, Obama, Bush, and Clinton.
“Kim truly represents a new sort of American,”
says Janice Min, editorial director of The Hollywood
Reporter. “She’s post-racial and incredibly modern
and intangibly alluring to a whole range of people.
When my baby was born, my nurse flew from New
York to L.A. to help and the first thing she wanted to
know when I picked her up at the airport was, Do you
live near the Kardashians?” If her success often vexes
people, says Min, it’s because she’s made it look so effortless. “There are millions of people in Hollywood
who should be interesting, but aren’t, and the fact that
Kim made it big through reality TV annoys many,”
says Min. “But what if your talent is just being irresistible on TV? The public can sneer, but the fact is
that this is the medium all people can relate to, and do.”
Of Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé Kardashian, the three
sisters who form the primary focus of the shows, Kim,
the 32-year-old middle, is the most popular, or at least
the most paid attention to, something she works hard to
maintain. She’s in Twitter’s top 10 and has more followers
than any other user on the photo-sharing site Instagram,
where she posts daily shots of her nails, her shoes, what’s
for lunch and the occasional inspirational aphorism, such
as, “Maybe you should eat makeup so you can try and
be pretty on the inside, bitch.” “When you live your life
so publicly, like on a reality show, people assume that
they know every side of you already,” Kardashian says
when we meet in Miami in January. “But they always
want more.” She obliges. When the cameras are rolling,
they’re really rolling; the sisters don’t even remove their
microphones to pee. An early episode of the recent season of Kourtney and Kim Take Miami featured a scene in
which Kim slathers her legs with Kourtney’s breast milk
in an effort to cure her psoriasis.
“Doing a TV show with your family, it’s really hard
to hide or be guarded,” she says. But really, the thinking
is far more genius, and purposeful: By inviting viewers
into her life in such an all-access way, she has provided
their most unrestricted entrée into Hollywood to date.
“Besides,” she adds, “we don’t want to film a show if we
can’t be who we are, because that’s just too much work.”
The shows’ relationships and personalities are convincing even when the situations seem contrived; she says
most fans tell her they like KUWTK because it reminds
them of their own family in some way. On screen, she
emits an appeal that’s particularly wide-ranging, with
qualities that combine to form what Min would call “her
X factor, her secret sauce.” She is at once very serious
and very funny. She tries to do the right thing, though it
doesn’t necessarily always work out, which helps keep
fans on her side. She is almost cartoonishly beautiful,
and sometimes makes questionable fashion choices. She
talks of dieting and her gym addiction one day, and professes her love for Golden Oreos the next. And she is an
unapologetic workaholic who isn’t afraid to admit that
there’s also something really appealing in the idea of
falling in love and living happily ever after. In this way,
she is not so unlike her personal icon, Elizabeth Taylor
(whose public image was, of course, similarly polarizing). But as Roddy McDowall once said of Taylor, his
friend and co-star, “People who damn her wish to hell
they could do what they think she does.” And so it goes
with Kardashian.
Bruce Weber, who photographed Kardashian for
DuJour at his home in Miami, says it was Kim’s complexities that drew him to her, and that her similarities
to Taylor inspired much of the story. “I didn’t know Kim
loved Elizabeth Taylor before we met, but I imagined she
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M
y mother calls from
Florida to tell me that
her Wednesday-morning
golf group is requesting
a Skype call. They’ve
heard I’ve interviewed
Kim Kardashian, and the ladies have a few questions.
Mostly, they’re concerned with how she looks: Is she
really that pretty? Could I verify her eyelashes? What,
if I had to guess, is the real-to-fake ratio of the hair
on her head? They want to know why she decided on
some see-through gray skirt she’s recently been photographed in, without underwear. They want to know if
her “trunk,” their word, is as prodigious as it appears to
be on television.
“Well, did she talk about Kane?” Mom demands.
“It’s Kanye,” I say, but she doesn’t really care and
not only because this is a woman whose music collection consists of ABBA and Martina McBride, on CD.
Although Kardashian’s love life is a steady topic of conversation—an Internet search for “Kim Kardashian boyfriend” generates more than 45 million results—she has
long been the headliner of her relationships. The men in
her life, even the very famous ones, are largely an afterthought—at the very least, secondary to her hair, if you
polled her multitude of fans. A recent photograph that
Kardashian shared, for example, captioned “I cut bangs
for real this time!,” solicited nearly 237,000 more “likes”
than the one in which she revealed her relationship with
rapper/singer Kanye West, her first boyfriend since the
widely publicized divorce.
In the five years since the debut of Keeping Up with
the Kardashians, the flagship of the ever-expanding
network of reality shows starring Kim Kardashian
and her family, she has become an object of undeniable fascination, an American phenomenon, perpetual headline news. People love her or they hate
her—Jimmy Kimmel once described her as a national
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would,” says Weber, who regarded Taylor as a very close
friend. “The great thing about Kim is that she’s so strong
and independent, but she also makes you want to take care
of her. Working with her made me really miss Elizabeth.”
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ive days after West announces to an
Atlantic City audience—and, thus, the
world—that Kardashian is pregnant with
his child, she is on the couch at her friend
Loren Ridinger’s Miami house, giving herself a manicure. She’s flown in from a paid appearance in Calgary
by way of Houston, a 12-hour travel day she made, threemonths pregnant, in a pair of brand new five-inch tan
suede Jimmy Choo pointed-toe stilettos and full makeup. She says she does not wear flats, not ever, unless
she’s on the treadmill; tomorrow at 8 a.m. she will show
up at the photo shoot wearing a pair of Lanvin track
pants and Tom Ford platform suede boots, with fringe.
In her everyday life, Kim says she wears form-fitting clothes less out of a desire to look sexy than to
dress-for-type; she loves fashion, but favors what she
thinks is flattering, for which she has been called, at
turns, “the sparkly showgirl” and “Princess Leia gone
wrong.” The barbs don’t bother her and, in fact, she’s
even called herself out on a few fashion misses, like
a boxy canary-yellow jacket, about which she wrote
on her blog, “Where were my sisters or my boyfriend
when I needed a good opinion?! LOL.”
“I think because I have big boobs it could make me
look heavier if I don’t, like, show off my waist or something, so I just have kind of learned to dress one way
only,” she says. “Khloe can wear flowy, pretty things
because she’s really tall. Kourtney is, like, really little.
I’m just kind of in between, so it doesn’t really work.”
The manicurist has forgotten the right shade of nude.
While she’s off at Walgreens, Kardashian wastes no
time sitting around and begins to clip and file her nails
herself. She thinks she knows how to remove the semipermanent shellac nail polish, so she swabs some sort of
solution she finds in the manicurist’s kit across her toes
and wraps them in tin foil. “I used to have to do this myself all the time, manicures and what not,” she says. “I
actually like it. It’s sort of like meditation.”
West’s announcement wasn’t exactly planned but,
Kardashian says, was a nice surprise, as was the pregnancy itself. Doctors had told her that, like her sister
Khloé, she would have a difficult time conceiving. “I
just feel so blessed and excited and ready for the next
phase,” she says, noting that 2012 was not her best year,
and she’s grateful it’s over, even if her brief marriage to
professional basketball player Kris Humphries technically is not. Humphries has refused to sign divorce papers; he’s suing her for an annulment instead, claiming
Kardashian orchestrated the wedding as a moneymaking PR stunt, which she says it wasn’t—that is, either a
PR stunt or, after expenses, particularly moneymaking.
She and her sisters spent most of January publicizing
the new season of Kourtney and Kim good-humoredly
delivering the following line to talk-show hosts: “If it
were for PR, she might have married someone people
had heard of!” She’s annoyed she’ll likely have to appear
in court to get divorced while many months pregnant.
Otherwise, she says evenly, pregnancy has so far
been no big deal. She’s had no morning sickness, no
cravings, no fatigue. She says she rarely drinks alcohol anyway—although in a recent episode of Kourtney
and Kim she does get drunk and forget where she left
her new kitten. “I don’t even like champagne,” she says,
noting that not having to spend her twenties hungover
allowed her to be very productive. Back when she was
15, her father, Robert, taught her two things: the importance of a strong work ethic and to drive, so that she
could take over when Kourtney and her friends partied
too hard. Kardashian says she liked being the good girl.
As close friend and designer Rachel Roy says, “Kim
has very nurturing, calm and fair qualities about her.
And her work ethic is like no other.”
Now, since she’s had to forgo her Diet Coke, her
worst vice is the occasional iced tea. “I used to always
say I can’t wait to get pregnant because I will just eat
whatever I want, but it’s completely different,” she says
as she makes her way through an apple pastry. “I’m
like, OK, I want to eat as healthy as possible. Though
lately I’ve been watching shows like ‘I’m Pregnant and
Addicted to Meth.’ It definitely makes me feel better if
I’m wanting one sip of Diet Coke or, you know, too much
sugar. I’m like, This woman is on meth.” She loves reallife murder mysteries and cop shows and says in another
life she’d be a crime-scene investigator.
She and West have been dating since April, though
they have been friends for many years. But, she says politely, tucking her foiled-wrapped feet beneath her, she
doesn’t really want to talk about him. She won’t even
refer to him by name. “My boyfriend has taught me a
lot about privacy,” she says. “I’m ready to be a little less
open about some things, like my relationships. I’m realizing everyone doesn’t need to know everything. I’m
shifting my priorities.” She’s started to be more selective
when fans ask for her photograph in airports or when out
to dinner, especially when she’s with West. “I just tell
them, sorry, but my boyfriend won’t let me,” she says.
West has not been interested in starring on any of his
girlfriend’s shows, though made the occasional appearance on last season’s Keeping Up With the Kardashians,
in which he’s seen giving Kardashian’s closet a makeover, weeding out anything too bright, too tight or too
shearling, and then selling it on eBay. Kardashian says
that the upcoming season of KUWTK, which began
filming last month, will not include any explicit “baby
stuff,” including doctor appointments, pre-baby shopping or giving birth, but she can’t say for certain whether
West will appear or not. “We haven’t really gotten that
far yet,” she says.
Certainly, Kardashian has reason to limit the amount
of airtime her love life gets. Having to watch the demise of her relationship with Humphries play out and
see herself cry all the time on TV was upsetting, and she
didn’t think the public backlash she faced was fair, either. “Going through a divorce for anybody is devastating and heartbreaking, and then to have to do it and feel
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like you have to explain what is happening is such an
awkward thing,” she says. “You have to explain your
choice to millions of people and then they’re disappointed. I’m disappointed. Why are they disappointed?” (Khloé says, “Kim never had to endure any bullying in her younger years. I think to be thrown into a
lion’s den with everybody attacking her really hit her
hard. It was very painful.”)
And yet the fact that her humiliation and heartbreak played out on such a public stage has also earned
Kardashian a unique sort of adulation. Like Elizabeth
Taylor, she is a hopeless romantic, and her willingness
to love, and fail, and love again makes for compelling
celebrity. “Kimberly believes in fairy tales,” says Khloe.
“It’s the best part about her.” Adds Roy, “Kim loves
very strong and very hard. What would break many,
she pushes through with grace and dignity.” When we
look back on Kardashian 40 years from now, perhaps
her greatest legacy will lie in that fact: She really can’t
be kept down, at least not for long.
“When the Kardashian hype first started, people
said, This will be over soon,” says Min. “When her
72-day marriage ended, people said she was through.
But Kim perseveres. She actually came back bigger.
One day, there will be academic courses taught on the
topic of Kim Kardashian.”
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he morning after the manicure, I arrive to
the shoot to find Kardashian enmeshed in a
Twitter exchange with a disenchanted fan.
“She keeps saying I’ve changed,” Kardashian
says frustratedly, without looking up from her phone.
“She says I’m a snob. She’s calling me all these names.”
She doesn’t get it, but she won’t drop it, either, as if she
can’t let it go until she’s convincingly pled her case.
(Second to crime-scene investigator in her list of other
life careers, says Kardashian, she’d have been a lawyer,
like her dad.) An hour later, she’s still going back and
forth with the girl, whom she’s never met nor likely ever
will. She thinks she may live in the Middle East.
Since she was a kid, Kim has always cared what
people thought of her. This constant need for approval
has made her likable to millions of women who feel the
same way—but it’s also helped fuel her brand. She is the
rare star who asks for fan feedback and then actually
takes it. She’ll ask her Twitter followers, all 17 million
of them, what they want her perfume to smell like, what
nail-polish colors they love, what they think of a certain
shade of lipstick from her new makeup line. This may be
one reason that although her face and name have proven
themselves powerful sales tools—she’s branded everything from cellphones to diet pills, and has appeared on
enough magazine covers to wallpaper an entire room of
her house, and not just theoretically—she’s still trying to
finesse high fashion, an industry not especially interested in the notion of crowdsourcing, even if she does move
product. As UK designer Roland Mouret noted, he’s
more likely to get orders on a dress that Kardashian’s
worn than, say, Kate Middleton.
But she is trying. In the last year, Kardashian’s clothing choices have become more streamlined and classic.
The wild patterns and plunging necklines that made her
an easy target for sartorial snobbery have been replaced
by tailored blazers and pants and feminine dresses in
blacks, grays, whites and neutral tones, not to mention
a very sophisticated black crocodile Birkin. Exceptions
are made, of course, like for the $6,000 calf-leather-andpearl booties designed by West that Kardashian wore
not long after telling the ladies of The View that she was
chasing “a simpler life” of staying home and cooking
in. Though she started out as a wardrobe stylist before
opening the first location of Dash, the sisters’ chain of
clothing boutiques, Kardashian has stopped styling herself. In recent months, Mugler creative director Nicola
Formichetti has worked with Kardashian to help her recreate her image and use clothes to capitalize on her relatability. “I think she is so fucking hot,” he’s said. “She
isn’t just a pin, she is much more sexy. Kim represents a
very important woman now. We know everything about
her. I am really into her.”
Though there are now three locations of Dash, the
store has largely become a tourist attraction and a branding tool. There are still clothes—mid-priced contemporary lines, mainly, “California casual” stuff the sisters
wore back before they became the brand themselves.
But there’s also $10 bottled water featuring the sisters on
the label and a line to get in. Kardashian and her sisters
don’t get there much anymore. “I love styling so I would
love putting outfits together and seeing someone come
out of the dressing room and really feeling good about
themselves,” she says. “I miss that. Back when we started, we were painting the walls and I was doing the register, and that was a fun time for us. But now when we go
in the store, we take away from the customers’ experience. It becomes about, you know, just something else.”
The family has signed on for two more seasons of
KUWTK—Season 8 began filming in February and
will premiere in June. The show, Kardashian says, has
been “truly, the best family movie ever,” even when
she’d rather not replay some of the scenes. And she’s
not just talking about those with the exes in her life. In
the second episode of this season’s Kourtney and Kim,
for example, which aired a month after Kardashian announced she’s expecting but was filmed long before,
she calls older sister Kourtney, a mother of two, a “slob
kebob” and says that she’d “die” if she had children
right now. “If you knew how boring you’d become,”
Kardashian asks her sister, “would you still have had
kids?” After Season 9, she says, she’s done.
But, as always, she makes no apologies—or promises. Today, she says Season 9 will be the last, but a
branding superstar like Kardashian doesn’t ensure
longevity by being inflexible. “I think there’s always
an evolution of, you know, what you want to do in
life,” she says. “It’s all about finding things that really
excite you and motivate you and spark you all over
again. I’m realizing that no matter what, if you go into
something with all these expectations and plans, once
you’re actually living it, it could be completely different.” And that, in fact, it probably is.
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During his shoot in Miami with Kim Kardashian, renowned photographer Bruce Weber was inspired by this 1940 John Melville Kelly etching,
titled “Hawaiian Decoration” (used with permission by Kelly Art Hawai’i). Widely praised for his depictions of native Hawaiians, Kelly is credited with bringing more positive attention to the islands. A collection of the artist’s work is on view at the Honolulu Museum of Art.
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tailor: roxanne Harvey at lars nord; manicurist: mairyn ramirez at nails by mairyn; stylist assistant: adam ballheim; photo assistants: michael murphy, joe digiovanna, chris domurat, jeff taurtrim, john knapp. Production assistants: reyaldo herrera, boris mcnertney, ron gibbs.
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Prop Stylist: Dimitri Levas.
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