7 sep 2020

Lily-Rose Depp, who is she really?

Just like her parents in the 1990s the world of fashion and cinema can’t seem to get enough of her. At the tender age of 17, Lily-Rose Depp has become much more than Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis’ daughter. Icon for a new generation and already nominate

By Violaine Schütz.

A promising indie actress

While she was nominated this year at the Césars, at the same age her father was busy smoking, drinking, self-harming, playing in garage bands and leaving school. The movie world opened its doors to the rebel without a cause in his twenties. Lily was even younger. She started her acting career in 2014 with a notable appearance in Tusk alongside her paternal hero. She then joined the cast of Yoga Hosers and Planetarium with Natalie Portman. But it’s for her role in The Dancer, in which she joins a feverish Isadora Duncan played by Soko that had her walking the red carpet at Cannes 2016 and sees her today nominated at the Césars in the Female Newcomer category. Will she be as moving as her mother when she won a prize at the 1991 ceremony?

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Karl Lagerfeld et Lily-Rose Depp – crédits Stéphane Feugère

An unusual muse

Karl Lagerfeld fell for her mother’s ingénue charm in 1991 and transformed her into a bird of paradise in a cult advert directed by Goude for the perfume Coco. With big dark eyes, child-like blonde hair, a graceful figure, jutting cheekbones and a pouting mouth, Lily possesses all her mother’s Lolita charms. So it came as no surprise that the house of Chanel snapped her up as one of its muses in 2015. Before Lily, legends including Marilyn Monroe, Catherine Deneuve and Carole Bouquet have all embodied the heiress of the liberated and modern Coco. Proof, if ever you needed it, that Lily is perfectly representative of her generation’s beauty: an alien with luscious lips and strangely bewitching large eyebrows.

Vanessa Paradis et Lily-Rose Depp – crédits David Mushegain

A teenager like any other

Behind the media coverage and polished campaigns, Lily-Rose tries to behave like any other teenager. She shares her life on her blog Kalilyfornia, posting shots of herself in crop tops on her Instagram lily.depp and twerking on a TV show. Like numerous other millennials, she dresses like the Jenner sisters, goes out with her friends to concerts and gets dressed up at Halloween. She also has to deal with the same problems as all girls of her age. In 2016 she admitted to having been anorexic when she was younger and struggling to leave the house. The perfect icon of generation K, she isn’t an individualistic spoilt kid and recently worked on a Planned Parenthood campaign alongside her mother.

An Instagram star in spite of herself

Lily-Rose has a complicated relationship with her generation’s social platform of choice. It’s served as a springboard but she is wary. Hers is a love-hate relationship resulting from the hacking and removal of her account in 2015. Today 2.5 million fans follow her posted photos that are distinctly more controlled than before her media explosion. Between two photos from the Chanel show, she still doesn’t forget to post some more natural shots from her private life, of friends and family. The best moment on her account? Her revelations concerning her sexual fluidity in support of an LGBT photo project. Her father talked to the press at the time, “She isn’t scared to speak out. We are very close and I am very proud of our relationship. She is a sparkling girl and one of the most intelligent people I have met. Much more than me!”