Photography: Ekua King, Styling: Jenny Kennedy
For Lily McMenamy, modelling is about so much more than fashion. Hot off the heels of shooting ELLE UK’s latest digital cover and a fast-pace Paris Fashion Week (where she walked some of the most acclaimed shows, including Chloé and Haider Ackerman’s debut for Tom Ford), her face is illuminated with a big grin as she talks about her work. She's not just a model, she tells me; she's a performer.
‘Modeling is an extension of the movement work that I do, and I think I always had a secret dream to do it,’ she smiles.
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The story goes that McMenamy made her runway debut as a child in the arms of her mother, supermodel Kristen McMenamy, during a Chanel show in the Nineties. It’s clear McMenamy Jr. was always destined to be a supermodel given her uncanny resemblance to her mother, punchy runway strut and off-beat British-French charm, qualities that have landed her in some of the starriest shows and campaigns in the business. When she turned 18, she was back on the catwalk as part of Hedi Slimane’s unforgettable first show for Saint Laurent, before fronting ads for the likes of Versace, Marc Jacobs and Gucci.
But aside from her illustrious modelling career, McMenamy feels most herself when on stage. At age 20, she enrolled into the renowned L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris to study physical theatre and mime for two years. She performed her first one-woman show as her final piece, where she embodied multiple personas and objects: the ocean, her internal anxiety and her ex-boyfriends. ‘Performance has always been there in everything I do. It’s always been my Northern Star in life,’ she says. ‘At physical theatre school, I discovered this whole new language that I was desperate to use.’
Around that time, she also starred on screen in Luca Guadagnino’s 2015 A Bigger Splash, with Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton, who she cites as one of her biggest inspirations.
In her latest work, a 45-minute piece titled A Hole Is a Hole and commissoned by the Pinault Collection in Paris, she plays 17 different characters. ‘It’s an odyssey through my unconscious. A fractured fairy tale,’ she says. Embodying a ‘wound’ coming out of her chest, a genie and a clown that moves in and out of the audience, she encourages you to expect the unexpected.
Over the past year, she’s taken the play to the New Theater Hollywood in Los Angeles, London Performance Studios and a red proscenium in Berlin, bringing her obscure but intriguing understanding of what being a young woman in today’s complex world feels like. ‘It’s emotional, comedic and grotesque at the same time. All the things I had to repress as a model and a woman I was able to express,’ she explains. The next step is to take the play on a fully fledged international tour. ‘It's so much fun when you finally start properly doing the thing you've always wanted do,’ she says. ‘When it touches and connects with people, it's just so powerful.’
ELLE UK caught up with McMenamy to discuss personal style, her favourite runway moments and how being subject to scrutiny is where she harnesses her inner power.
On her personal style
When you're young and forming a personality, clothes become a way of showing people who you are. The dress-up box was sacred when I was young, and I was definitely the weirdest dressed girl at school. I think I'm regressing into that now. For a long time, I was rebelling against fashion because I was wearing so much. I've developed this kind of mime, circus, Lolita, librarian-style over the past month.
I was big on the blogs and that helped shape my style. Now, I’m addicted to Pinterest. Sometimes I'm like, 'Lily, you're not 14.' There's something about the teenage girl world that continues to romance me. There’s something so sacred and enchanting about it that I'm always seeking to return to.
On walking her favourite shows
When I walked for Charlotte Knowles [for spring/summer 2024] I had my own song and I really went for it, I was sticking my tongue out and shit. People are usually always telling me to close my mouth on the runway. It felt like a mix of all the things I love at the moment. But it was also just very camp.
I also loved walking [the spring/summer 2023] Dilara show without sound. We had no time to prepare; I arrived and instantly had to be on stage. I was wearing this dress that Julia Fox has just worn with lots of hair on it, and it was set in this old house. There was no music, and that really brought this new level of intensity. I knew that my stamping was gonna be the soundtrack. I had little bells on my heels, I just loved bringing an element of danger to the audience.
On her pre-runway rituals
I get into such a stress before the show. It's funny; I've seen pictures of my mum, and she's always praying, but for me, it's about getting into the zone. The most dangerous thing for you to do as a performer is to dissociate. Imagine you're on the runway, and there are all these people looking at you. It is a very surreal thing to do. So it's easy to lock out and freeze up. But you have to stay a bit alive.
On her relationship with Paris
I definitely feel at home in Paris in a different kind of way. I was there for fashion week; it was really magical, walking the cobble streets in the sunshine. People have a real appreciation for beauty, which is not really felt in the same way in other places. You can really lock into a character in a very romantic, poetic way. There's so much mystery, you feel like there are little pockets of secrets everywhere.
On her favourite things to do in London
I like going on epic walks through the whole city for hours at a time. It really purifies my soul. Also, bookshops are the most comforting thing in the world to me. I don't know what it is about them, but I’ll make a pilgrimage to Foyles.
On writing a one-woman show
I wrote it and rewrote it every day. It was the most intense period of my whole life. Devising solo theater is a real beast because it's literally just you. It’s challenging but beautiful. I saw someone do the Odyssey on their own, and that's what really inspired me. My partner did the sound, and then you’ve got the set, the lights and the audience and suddenly you realise you have all these other dancing partners.
On her pre-stage rituals
I found this YouTube page called Yoga for Dancers that's really good for yin yoga and stretching to ease me into it. Then, after that, I'll get myself into a mad frenzy of dancing and shouting. A lot of the time, I feel a light shining on me, a gaze upon me. I feel like my work is about switching the light around and looking out. I want to channel an energy that's bigger than me and lock into something that's going to allow me to be really sensitive to the audience. My friends call it the girl tornado.
On being subject to scrutiny
I'm really sensitive to the audience on the night, and I'm generally a very sensitive person. I love making people laugh; that’s what really gets me going. Being subject to scrutiny is, ironically, where I harness my power.
On her antidote to healing
When I discovered the grotesque at school, it was a massive moment for me because it's not necessarily just about being freaky, intense and weird. I think it's a diabolical power, to shield yourself against certain energies you don’t want projected onto you.
Editor-in-Chief: Kenya Hunt. Photographer: Ekua King. Stylist: Jenny Kennedy. Model: Lily McMenamy at Next Management. Makeup: Tina Khatri. Hair: Hiroshi Matsushita. Manicure: Ami Streets at The Wall Group. Set Design: Julia Dias Studio. Fashion Director: Avril Mair. Design Director: Zoya Kaye. Bookings Editor: Tom Casey. Stylist Assistants: Sabrina Leina and Nina Gahrén Williamson. Set Assistant: Matthew Payne.
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