Model Carolyn Murphy is a less annoying kind of supermodel

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This was published 8 years ago

Model Carolyn Murphy is a less annoying kind of supermodel

By Laura Craik

In fashion circles, "authenticity" is the word of the moment. Mega-brands know that pleading authenticity is a smart way of connecting with their customer. "Look! We hand-stitch things! We use artisans! We're not a multimillion-dollar luxury goods house churning out hundreds of thousands of products at all!"

Carolyn Murphy has authenticity in spades. At 41, she continues to be one of the most highly paid and sought-after models in the industry - not least because she oozes good health and wholesome all-American charm. In person, she feels authentic too - far warmer and less guarded than her pristine blonde persona might suggest, the very opposite of a supermodel.

Carolyn Murphy at the  New York City Ballet Fall Gala.

Carolyn Murphy at the New York City Ballet Fall Gala.Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo

She's based in New York, but has a home in southern California, where she keeps a 25-year-old horse and a brood of chickens she calls her "ladies". Her boyfriend is Sydney-born US restaurant entrepreneur Lincoln Pilcher, 34, son of Nancy Pilcher, the legendary former editor of Australian Vogue. She has a beauty regime which is simple in its execution: alkaline water, eight to 10 hours' sleep, biodynamic vegetables, frequent sauna sessions, power crystals, and transcendental meditation.

And while she's not the first 40-something model to have embraced clean eating and meditation, she is possibly the least annoying. Ask her to confirm that her own approach to ageing is well-balanced, and she exclaims:

"No, it's not! I find it so peeving when you see these models who are like, 'Oh, my green juices and my workouts' and everything is so perfect. It's not reality.

"If I were really to post pics or have a dialogue about the struggles with ageing, it would be, 'Oh FFS, am I supposed to stop laughing all the time because the lines keep growing?' I like the road maps of my life; I like being able to move my face around. I'm not against [having] any 'help' - there are ways to go about it, and it's a personal choice. But I have the most minimalist approach to it. I don't like killing myself at the gym or having a cabinet full of products."

For every woman, acceptance of ageing is as challenging as it is important. And for supermodels?

"That's the hardest part for most of us," she agrees. "It's really difficult from my perspective. Say I'm in a fashion show and walking behind a 15-year-old from Denmark who has porcelain skin ... it's very humbling, but at same time, what are the assets of being older?

"I like the fact that I'm wiser, and have earned the lines I have. I spend time with Christy Turlington - she is unbelievable. She's got great skin, she exercises, but she loves her coffee and she loves a glass of wine. It's all about balance, and enjoying your life."

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Murphy has built a career on her own terms. She was a "bookish tomboy" from a US military family when she was spotted by a modelling scout at 15. She went to Paris for a bit soon after, then spent some time in New York, under the maternal wing of Ford Models founder Eileen Ford, during the spring break of her senior high school year. But she was terrified of New York, and overwhelmed by the cookie-cutter girls she saw in the modelling business. And so she went straight back home to Virginia.

It wasn't until she picked up a copy of Harper's Bazaar and saw pictures of Kate Moss and Australian-born '90s supermodel Emma Balfour, shot by UK fashion photographer David Sims, that she realised she could model and still be herself. Next thing she knew, she was on a plane to New York.

"I was floored by the way these women looked because they were edgy, they were cool," she told Harper's Bazaar last year. "It was the way we dressed.

It was artistic. It wasn't that glamazon of the '80s, so I felt less intimidated.

I identified with it.

"[But] I always ran away. I went back to Virginia. I moved to Costa Rica and had my [primatologist] Jane Goodall moment: there were monkeys everywhere; they're like the pigeons in Manhattan. I probably should've joined the Peace Corps."

She was "really reticent" about modelling, she says today. "I started later than most - at about 19 or 20 - and even then, it was to earn money to go to college and be a writer. I loved creative writing.

I hadn't grown up thinking, 'Oh, I want to be a supermodel, I want to be famous.' "

Her laid-back attitude is typical of the decade in which she was discovered. "That was the beauty of the early '90s, and of grunge," she says. "The attraction of seeing these pics of Kate Moss and Emma Balfour that David Sims had shot. They were riveting but relatable.

I could relate to that girl, that music, that art. It was a wonderful time.

"There wasn't this uniform, bombshell Victoria's Secret hair where we all looked the same. We were celebrated for our differences. We were unique individuals, whether it was the way we dressed, wore our hair, what we listened to, how we behaved - which was super-unpredictable - and we weren't plugged in all the time. It wasn't corporate. Now everything is very corporate, very well-planned and thought-out."

Back then, Murphy was a shy girl from the sticks, and had to find a way of connecting with people that was real for her. Now, she says, "A lot of the time, I'll sit in a chair with a hair and make-up artist and they'll say, 'God, we're so glad we have you,' because they're so used to having a model whose nose is so stuck in her phone that she doesn't know how to communicate."

Murphy has played her hand marvellously. Last year she starred in a new campaign for Oscar De La Renta; she's also the face for the label's spring campaign this year. She has been Estée Lauder's longest-serving face (14 years and counting), designs lingerie for UK underwear house Cheekfrills, and is a spokesperson for Ugg's Classic Luxe line. She has also starred in campaigns for the likes of Versace, Tiffany & Co. and Tom Ford.

It's not surprising that Estée Lauder has held on to Murphy. As well as being eloquent, she's easy to relate to - the most valuable commodity of all.

"I still have 'pinch-me' moments where I can't believe I represent the brand," she says. "I grew up with it.

"I don't think some of the newcomers within the brand have that connection, so maybe that's why I'm still there. We are all ageing together, and ageing is a wonderful thing, in some ways, and not so wonderful in others. I've had moments where I think to myself, 'I'm almost 42 and still working.' I don't know what the formula is, other than to give 110 per cent to whatever I do."

A relatively new gig for Murphy is Shinola - an all-American styled fashion label. She has been its women's design director since 2013, after being cast in its first advertising campaign.

You might think she'd have been busy enough with her chooks, her modelling career and being mother to 15-year-old daughter Dylan Blue (from her otherwise disastrous marriage to surfer Jake Schroeder). But so impressed was she with Shinola, she longed to work for it.

"I'd been in fashion for 22 years, I'd done a few collaborations before, but theirs was one of the first relationships that seemed authentic, in terms of what we believed in," she says. "Shinola has had to climb mountains. There have been naysayers, because [Shinola's] challenging a lot of American companies to rethink their business model. It's no surprise our economy took a crash in 2008, importing so many things from overseas. Why aren't we creating jobs in America?

"We have to be careful, because realistically there are going to be times when not all the parts are made there. But the intention is that we're providing jobs for people in our backyard. It's assembled in Detroit, it's handmade and there's some meaning here."

This seems a good time to mention social media. Most models agree it's A Good Thing, that it gives them a voice. Not Murphy. She reckons it's a fake.

"I think it's a disaster waiting to happen," she says flatly. "There is such an inauthentic element to it. Anybody, myself included, can curate what the world should be seeing. It saddens me, not only that we believe in it but that we also think that it's important. To place importance on gathering numbers is ridiculous.

"I don't want to post pictures of myself and there are two reasons for that: one, I consider myself a private person, and two, I think it's silly. It comes across as supercilious, just constantly self-promoting. I'd rather share things that are of some importance to me, but even then there's a voyeurism I find super uncomfortable."

Does she think people have lost the art of conversation, of connecting face-to-face? "They have," she says. "It's sad. Not me. Not Motormouth Murphy. I can talk forever." •

THREE FACTS

She was born in Panama City, Florida.

She has a collection of first-edition books.

In 2005, she was featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

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