'I was born in London and lived there for five years before moving to California. I grew up around Santa Monica and Venice, where my style was very public-school-kid. When I started getting scouted at 15, I wasn't very nice looking—I had pink hair and bowl cuts and stuff like that. Part of that was because I was always interested in photography. I love the art of it—I used to dress up and try to replicate pictures by myself.
I’ve had a songbook since I was eight, but lately I've slowly been getting more serious about my music. I sing and play guitar and bass. It’s something I have to be careful about because, with modeling, it’s hard to find people to play with who aren’t just like, ‘Oh you’re a model.’ Or a lot of people I’m playing with just agree with me. But I want to be challenged.
That goes along with the way I like to dress—I want to wear what rock stars used to wear! Now that I've moved to New York, I feel like everyone dresses in this uniform, and I've tried that, but wearing vintage is more interesting to me. I have really long legs and arms but a tiny torso, so I love wearing high-waisted things because it'll make it look like I have hips and a butt. I'll wear baggy things to make my butt look big because I'm into that shape. I think that's what a woman should look like. It’s cool looking lanky, but you should flaunt it if you got it. Accentuate whatever part of your body makes you feel sexy. If that doesn't go with whoever's standards, it doesn't matter. It's the same with my teeth. It's very American to get braces, but I kept my inch or so overbite. I think that has formed my mouth and that's why my lips are so big.
My skincare routine is pretty simple. I wear lots of moisturizer and coconut oil. Olay has good moisturizers, and Dior Intensive Night Cream is really nice. I just had my eyebrows bleached for like a month and I dyed them black like two days ago. I had to draw them in every day and just decided I couldn’t do it anymore. Now they're darker than my natural color, but I like it. It’s crazy what happens when you dye them back and forth, you notice different colors in your face and your whole shape changes. I only pluck the strays in the middle, but nothing else. Then I'll use a brown Urban Decay eyeliner to do winged eye and Butter Wink Mascara in Brown Sugar.
There's something I've always liked about lipstick; I’ve worn it since I was, like, eight. It's about dedication—you start off a day or night like, 'I’m doing lipstick today. I’m going to be responsible for it. I'm going to be checking on it.' If you forget about it, it’ll get on your teeth or your face. I like the idea that guys don’t always like it, because then they can’t kiss you. I think it’s cool that you can like choose to wear something like that. I’ve been into this Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick that you put on once and you don’t have to touch it. There was one time I was putting it on, and it accidentally got on my chin and stained so badly. I had to put concealer over it. It is so strong; it’s like paint. But you know it's not going to smudge. Yeah, that stuff stays put.”
—as told to ITG
Staz Lindes (Instagram, Tumblr) photographed by Emily Weiss in New York on June 16, 2014 wearing YSL Kiss & Blush (more on that here).
