COVER STORY

120

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Plastic Surgery

120 HAUTE TRAVEL

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Orient-Express to a goop cruise with Gwyneth

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130 HAUTE PARTNERS

250 years of Veuve

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132 HAUTE SCENE

The hottest Haute Living events of the season

HAUTE BEAUTY88 HAUTE TIME26

CINDY CRAWFORD HAS DEFIED BEAUTY STANDARDS FOR DECADES, BUT DON’T YOU DARE START CALLING HER AGELESS.

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN BOWEN SMITH STYLING BRAD GORESKI HAIR DIMITRIS GIANNETOS MAKEUP LISA STOREY NAILS YOKO SAKAKURA SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE SANTA MONICA PROPER HOTEL, SANTA MONICA, CALIF.

et’s put it this way: there are very few things Cindy Crawford hasn’t done. As a 30-plus-year modeling vet, one of the OG supermodels, a trailblazer who defined a pivotal moment in time when fashion models became stars in their own right, she’s basically seen it all, done it all, and done it all again. But, up until early September, there was one thing she hadn’t really tried: living in the moment, free in her own skin, forgetting time, place, and beauty routine. Which is how, at age 56, she found herself on a bicycle at Burning Man, cycling through a sandstorm and covered in white dust, shining like a beautiful beacon in a shimmering gold jumpsuit, living her best life.

That said, a surreal desert counterculture party in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert is not the place one might expect to see the impeccable Ms. C, but in her opinion (though said rather more succinctly), to hell with what everyone else might think — she wanted to go. “[My daughter] and I got invited by a friend of ours, kind of at the last minute, and we were like, ‘Why not?’ It just seemed like the perfect thing, because we were tagging along with people who had been there before, so we didn’t have to figure anything out except what to pack, which — by the way — was already intimidating enough. [FYI, she nailed her trade, likely outclassing those who gave drugs or daisy chains by swapping for mini bottles of Casamigos, finger lights, and Polaroid cameras.] It was only two days and two nights, so I was like, I can do anything for 48 hours. And it ended up being a really incredible experience,” she admits.

I urge her to explain the experience. Personally, I still don’t quite get what actually happens at Burning Man; its purpose seems vaguely ambiguous, while the concept behind a Playa name makes me think of the drunken alter egos sorority girls gave themselves in college, yet apparently it’s synonymous with a secret self, both gifted at and only used whilst at the festival. (Crawford didn’t stay long enough to get one, but there’s always next year, since she’s already talking about going back).

“I mean, listen, it’s raw. You’re uncomfortable because it’s dusty and dirty, but it’s very creative, Mad Max meets Alice in Wonderland meets virtual reality. It’s just wild, and very liberating because you’re outside of yourself, in a way. It’s not like, ‘Oh, my outfit looks good, therefore I feel good.’ I’ve only had an experience like this once before, when I stayed at an African game park for a month; I literally only had a tiny hand mirror that I could use to brush my teeth. Like then, the way you looked here did not determine how you were feeling that day. It was incredibly freeing.”

In being uncomfortable, in not being able to be the Cindy Crawford, she found a poignant sense of release, and, simultaneously, relief that she didn’t have to be everything to everyone; that, for a brief moment in time, she could just be.

“I didn’t get it before, but now I feel like I do. For me, it was like, you’re so out of your comfort zone in every way, that you have no other choice but to find yourself. We all walk around in reality having stepped into these roles — mother, wife, whatever — which are all roles I signed up for, but there is stuff that comes with those roles, like responsibility. In my family, for instance, I’m the organizer, I’m the on-time one, I’m the more serious one. And I think it’s easy to get caught up in these roles, and to feel introspective as a result. Like, who am I? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just going through a midlife crisis,” she laughs ruefully. (Here I must disagree: if she was really going through a midlife crisis, she would have definitely worn a hot pink unicorn bikini to the Burn; instead, it was the aforementioned gold-flecked jumpsuit, a modest black bikini top, and ski goggles.)

But, for a brief time, at least, she was able to discard any uncertainty, doubt, or agenda, like a snake does its skin, releasing and unleashing in the dusty desert air. “I think when you’re at Burning Man, you shed those skins, and you’re just you. You’re your own essential being. I feel like it’s a great place to just reconnect with your true self,” she maintains.

As it happens, it was also a great place to connect with her daughter. It’s unbelievable, yet also a spectacular testament to Crawford’s character that, when her mini-me turned 21 and wanted to embark on an epic, uncharted adventure to celebrate the occasion, she chose her mom as her ride-or-die. But I guess when your mom is Cindy Crawford, it makes sense; this is a woman who will be forever cool. What she says next simply furthers my point.

“I’ve been very fortunate, because I’ve got to do some fun things with my daughter. We did the Off-White fashion show together in Paris, and it wasn’t as if I was there as her mom or she was there as my daughter — we were both invited to be a part of the show. And then there’s something like Burning Man. I mean, I’m sure she would’ve loved to have her boyfriend there, and I would love to go with my husband sometime, but it worked out that we went together and we had a great time. I love doing anything with her, but you also want to be cautious of letting her have her experiences without mommy looking over her shoulder. For example, she turned 21 [at the festival]. The next night she had a small dinner, which I went to, and then a party at a club, which I didn’t.”

A love of freedom must run in the family: as Cindy herself discovered, it’s essential for her own personal happiness, too.

As George Michael’s “Freedom 90” starts to play in my head (the music video that made Crawford a star and household name), she says it was only when she returned to her everyday life in Malibu that she realized what gift the festival had truly bestowed upon her.

“When I came back, I went God, I feel so carefree and fun, on the Playa, riding bikes, with no schedule. It’s like, ‘Oh, let’s go look at that piece of art,’ and then you’d ride over there, and either stay for five minutes or you stay for an hour. But then, you return to reality, to your life, and I personally felt like now I’m the responsible mother again. I’m this, I’m that. And now, it’s me questioning, at this point in my life, do I still want to be all of those things that I unconsciously signed up for?”

Heavy. I always expected true “Burners” (which is how Burning Man enthusiasts refer to themselves — not to be confused with “burnouts,” but… kind of?) to live in states of heightened reality and to use their time away from reality, from cell phones, from normality, as an escape. But Crawford, one of the most iconic models in history with the longevity to back it up, doesn’t fit the mold of who I expected to attend, or one who would get so much out of the experience, for that matter.

And while it made her question her everyday reality, Crawford is hardly a fool. Actually, one might say she’s the complete opposite, having been valedictorian of her hometown high school in DeKalb, Illinois, earning an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern (which she attended for only one semester before dropping out to pursue a full-time modeling career). As such, she strategically decided to figure out how to implement her epiphany of self-discovery into her daily life at home.

“I started reevaluating. I was like, wait, I had so much fun. I felt carefree there. How can I bring that back to real life?”

For most of her life, Crawford has been the consummate scheduler, the ultimate planner. She’s needed to be to get to where she is today, to have the kind of career longevity that’s eluded so many. And she loves her life, she does. She’s

content, the kind of woman that has it all. But spontaneity has never seemed like a luxury she could afford. Time (a familiar topic, given that she’s timepiece brand Omega’s longest-standing ambassador) always seemed too fleeting. Until now, that is.

“It’s something I’ve been working on,” she says. “I started working with a coach this year, and one of the things that she speaks to me about is time. Specifically, where do I feel constricted, and where is it stressing me out? I’m a planner, and very, very organized; I’m the type that gives myself exactly the amount of time I need for any specific activity. Let’s say I finish my workout at 9:30, and have my first call of the day at 10, so I have a half-hour to shower and get myself together. But, say, my husband wants to have a conversation with me. I found that I’d be looking at my watch, like, I have three minutes, and then he would get irritated, or I would feel the stress of knowing that now I wasn’t going to have time to put makeup on. It never occurred to me to maybe push my first meeting back a little, because I was just so focused on being efficient.”

She continues, “For so long, the only way for me to do everything that I wanted to do was to pencil it in. For instance, I always enjoyed being the first one up in the house, even when my kids were little, because I needed that 20 minutes where no one needed anything from me. So I would get up early and have an outdoor Jacuzzi, put on gym clothes, and get on my email. Taking that Jacuzzi meant that I had taken the time to connect with myself. I never really scheduled in unscheduled time, and I think I’m doing more of that. Now, I’m finding ways to give myself more breathing room. And that’s where I’m at in my life, leaving a little bit more cushion for the unexpected.”

And more time to explore the freedom that comes with it. hen I speak to Crawford, it’s the day after our photo shoot at the Santa Monica Proper Hotel, and she’s low-key and beachy at home in Malibu, relaxed and make-up free — a chameleon-like departure from the glamazon of yesterday in all of her high-heeled, sultry glory. But personally, this Cindy is the one I prefer. Right now, she’s both down-to-earth and self-deprecating, someone you could hang out and have a few margaritas with. Professional, shoot-mode Cindy Crawford, dressed to kill in Dior and Chanel, with fierce makeup and five-inch heels (bringing her height from 5’9” to 6’2”), is intimidating as hell.

Which brings us to the topic du jour: confidence. Looking as she does, it’s only natural to assume she’s always had it. And she has, but that doesn’t mean she’s always been secure, nor would it be fair to assume she doesn’t have the same self-criticisms, even though she’s outrageously beautiful. As someone who has literally come into her own in front of a camera, the hyper-judgement of others, of strangers, is very, very real.

“I was never full of self-loathing or anything like that. I was probably a typical kid,” she says now of her youth in Illinois and just after, in 1986, when she moved to New York to model professionally. “But,” she notes, “modeling is interesting, because all of a sudden you have a seal of approval that other people think you’re attractive, though you know the reality of the smoke and mirrors that go into making pictures. So sometimes, I felt that if people saw me in real life, they’d be surprised. And even for myself, I’d wonder: do I need to be Cindy Crawford tonight, or can I just be Cindy? Because I need two hours of hair and makeup to just be Cindy Crawford, or at least be presentable.”

Luckily, the opposite is true in her private life. After a day of full glam, she’ll head home to husband Rande Gerber, he of Casamigos fame, who likes her just