Shalom Harlow Covers InStyle Magazine March 2020 by Chris Colls
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Supermodel Shalom Harlow returns to the fashion world, styled by Julia von Boehm in Balmain (orange), Carolina Herrera (dots), Chanel (ivory sleeveless top) Gucci and more. Chris Colls is in the studio for InStyle Magazine US March 2020./ Hair by Danilo; makeup by John McKay
Kerry Diamond conducts the interview.
Discovered at a Cure concert in Toronto in 1989, the 15-year-old ballet dancer became one of the true model stars of the ’90s. For Shalom Harlow, modeling was an art form. “I really gave so much of myself to it,” she says. “I let my animal nature guide me, and that’s why I’ve been a dynamic cohort to these artists. I used to get scolded because I would be so insistent on being part of the creative process,” Harlow tells Diamond.
Her flair for the theatrical helped bring one of modern fashion’s most iconic moments to life — the finale of Alexander McQueen’s spring 1999 show, No. 13. Like a terrified silent-film actress, Harlow spun slowly on a wooden turntable as two giant robotic arms sprayed black and yellow paint across her voluminous white trapeze dress. As she explains it, what looked like a highly choreographed routine was anything but. “I got straight off a red-eye flight and went right to the show,” she remembers. “The producers were like, ‘Walk on that thing. It’s going to spin, the arms are going to come alive, and they’re going to hit you with paint.’” Harlow insisted on a quick run-through in the high-heel mules that she was supposed to wear and then ran downstairs to use the bathroom. “I came out to wash my hands, and Björk was there. I was like, ‘Oh my god. My favorite artist in the world is going to watch me not know what I’m doing.’ But it was Lee [McQueen] putting me into an environment that he trusted I would know how to respond to.”
Harlow details her retreat from the fashion world and serious battles with multiple health challenges. Her return to the fashion stage came in the loving arms of longtime friend photographer Steven Meisel and Donatella Versace’s “gloriously patterned bell-bottom jumpsuit.”
