kardashians

Kardashians, Curves, and Claridge's

LIKE walking along the Grand Canal in Venice or viewing Sydney Opera House for the first time, seeing Kim Kardashian West in real life is surprisingly unsurprising since she looks exactly as you would expect her to from the hundreds, or more likely thousands, of pictures you've seen of her. Groomed and glossy, curvaceous but toned, and with the facial proportions of a very beautiful Bratz doll, she is unarguably one of the world's most recognisable women.
It's clear from the selfies that she tirelessly snaps for her social media channels - which have prompted her to create a 350-plus-page book on the subject, with pictures from the past decade - that she knows her best features. Drawing on her indisputable but unusual beauty and her gravity-defying womanly shape, she and her sisters - Kourtney and Khloe - launched a clothing line, Kardashian Kollection, now in its fifth collection in the UK, with Lipsy. So has she already enlisted her designer friends - from Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy to Olivier Rousteing of Balmain - to advise her on the range?
"I've never asked them," she shook her head, "not yet anyway. The three of us [sisters] have worked really hard on it and I think that the great thing about the differences between us is that our shapes come in useful for designing. Khloe is really tall, obviously, and Kourtney is petite, so I think that if we can make something that suits all three of us, it will look great on anyone."

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Picture credit: Getty

Anyone is probably a slight stretch, since - height differences notwithstanding - the trio have something very much in common, and that's curves. Filling the dresses and jumpsuits - as well as the girls' first coat for the line - will be more of a challenge to most than it is to the Kardashians, but there are certainly successful brands with a much narrower idea of the girl they dress. Kardashian West's wide-ranging appeal has seen her become, as GQ editor Dylan Jones said at the magazine's awards earlier this year, "Coca-Cola famous" - and marrying one of the world's most famous singers and producers has cemented that status still further.

Talking to her, it's easy to forget who she is. If you block out the 10 PRs, publicists, photographers and minders in the room eyeing you suspiciously, she could almost (almost) be someone you know. The reality show - Keeping Up with the Kardashians, now on its tenth season - has contributed to this, of course, making her more accessible than most actresses, singers and models will ever be, even with Instagram access. The other element that magnifies her humanity is her role as a mother, something that she lights up and opens up about quite freely.

Picture credit: Getty

"My daughter is here, upstairs," she gestured to a Claridge's suite above the one we were chatting in. "We're all a bit jet-lagged," she smiled, adding that 16-month-old North was very good on the flight to London despite her tender years. The family travelled from LA the day before we met after Kim convinced her husband, Kanye West, to stop over with her and North - before they all travelled to Australia together - by assuring him that it was "half way". Her smile indicated that she knew it was nothing of the kind, as did West probably, but the threesome quite obviously just want to be together as much as possible.
And with that - clad in her own label, of course - she was off Down Under: nervous about the flight with a young child, she admitted, as anyone would be. Celebrity, entrepreneur, and normal working mum. Sort of.