Michael Kors sidesteps houndstooth’s heritage hallmarks with pronounced shoulders MICHAEL KORS COLLECTION coat, £2,545 (michaelkors.co.uk) FENDI boots, £ 1,090 (fendi. com). Necklaces, Slick’s own
thing I do to working out is lifting a blunt [joint] to my face,’ she has said. ‘I was never the pretty girl at school, I was the ugly kid. Am I the beauty norm now?’ she asks rhetorically. ‘When Rihanna’s like, “This is my brand, you’re the face of it, and this is what I think beauty is…”’ She shrugs. ‘I’m trying to accept the whole thing.’ As to exactly why she is having a moment, Woods thinks it’s simple. ‘I’ve figured out the algorithm. I’m not trying to make people like me. And I feel like that’s refreshing — they’re like, “Yo, she really doesn’t give a f***.”’
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eal name Simone Thompson, Slick Woods was a moniker given by friends in recognition of her superior skill in rolling joints (aka a ‘backwoods blunt’). She has, she admits, lost money because of her habit, which she openly flaunts on Instagram, one of the platforms that assisted in her rapid rise to fame. ‘I’ve lost $125,000 in a day from being myself,’ she nods, referring to work lost because of her association with weed. She also seems conflicted about the industry that has fast-tracked her through its hallowed ranks. ‘For Urban Outfitters, I would sell the ugly sweaters because I looked cool. I don’t want to make other s*** cool,’ she says, vehemently. ‘People wrap me up in ugly-ass clothes, saying: “You can make anything look good.” I feel like people use this s*** to dim your light.’ The initial stages of sudden fame were bewildering. ‘It drew me into a dark hole, because it wasn’t tangible. Everyone loved me but I didn’t have stuff. ‘I had fame before I had bread [money],’ she tells me, earnestly, as she orders six Bluepoint oysters and a double shot of Hennessy. I’ll freely admit that, before meeting Woods, I was more than a little intimidated by her fierce social media persona. In the flesh, however, her energy is more mischievous sold) in Los Angeles, addicted to opioids and scratching a living than aggressive. She tells me that she’s often through credit-card crime. ‘It’s been a really eventful year for mistaken for a boy. ‘Then I’ll act really me,’ she grins, giving me a good, long look at that trademark feminine and start tapping my nails.’ She gap-toothed smile. ‘I turned 21 this summer, at 12am on the brandishes them on the table — long, grey, dot of my picture wrap.’ She celebrated in suitably debauched, dagger-like talons that could do serious cognac-fuelled style, at her favourite strip club. damage on the end of the wrong hands. ‘I She’s already branching out beyond the catwalk; she shot love f***ing with people,’ she giggles. her first feature film last month, playing the title character in Flashback: Woods as a schoolgirl She is also an enormous flirt, singing to me Goldie, a gritty indie drama directed by Sam de Jong and funded by and, uninvited, running her fingers through my hair. So powerful is Vice. ‘My acting ability surprised the f*** out of me,’ she admits. ‘It her sexual charisma that I imagine it would be hard to refuse her, was like forced therapy, being able to bring the things that I have whatever you believe your orientation to be. gone through to the table. ‘I’m so in between wanting to respect the woman and wanting to ‘But next time, I want to play someone who is not like me,’ she says, f*** these bitches,’ she says of dating. ‘But everyone’s broken. And deadly serious. ‘Like a Clueless girl or something.’ everyone’s so insecure. I feel like, sometimes, I’m on this higher We’re in the back garden of a bar in Manhattan, across the street plane, this self-aware plane, just by myself.’ She’s currently single; from the studio where Woods has spent the day shooting for our story. fellow model Ebonee Davis ‘broke my heart’, she confesses. ‘I sent She’s changed into her own clothes now — customised Raf Simons her 16 bouquets of purple roses to say I miss you. She’s the one that Ozweego trainers and a hooded Fenty jumpsuit: biker shorts on the got away, man.’ bottom and a top unzipped so low that I am treated to an eyeful of Born in Minneapolis (‘one of the cities you don’t go to’) in the my braless interviewee’s left breast, complete with nipple piercing, Midwestern state of Minnesota, Woods was raised by her mother, before she realises and adjusts herself. Leah. ‘She was a street hustler, a gang-banger, the most respected Even without the tattoos, gold jewellery or the almost-bald head, woman I’ve ever been around.’ She never knew her father. ‘She always which is shaved religiously every three days, her look is an arresting put me first, though. I’ve never met anyone as selfless as my mother. one — enormous doe eyes, huge pillowy lips and a lithe, athletic body, My mother gave her life for me.’ which she claims to do absolutely nothing to maintain. ‘The closest Woods is smart, no doubt, but speaks in the grand, drama-filled
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