Kristen McMenamy Is More Than Your Favorite Instagram Account

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Today, it feels like there’s a well-established formula for a model’s Instagram feed. A curated slideshow from their latest magazine shoot or campaign? Check. An artfully constructed mirror selfie featuring an up-and-coming designer? Check. An allegedly candid holiday snap of a brightly-colored bikini set against sparkling blue waters? Check. After becoming so accustomed to these tasteful, easy-on-the-eye grids, then, scrolling through supermodel Kristen McMenamy’s Instagram feed is like jumping into a cold plunge pool. Refreshing, but—I have to warn you—bracing.

A little like McMenamy herself. At 56, McMenamy is still as exuberant, stylish, and provocative as she was when she made her name as the face of Chanel and Versace in the late ’80s and early ’90s. And while she might have joined Instagram as recently as April, her 30,000 followers make up a who’s who of fashion, with Naomi Campbell, Alessandro Michele, Marc Jacobs, Karen Elson, Inez and Vinoodh, and many, many more reliably lighting up her comments section. 

Tumbling down McMenamy’s Instagram rabbit hole, you might find a powder pink Molly Goddard ruffled cotton gown over an acid green Balenciaga cycling top; a Christopher Kane slip dress printed with an alien’s head paired with rubber Birkenstocks; a Goth-fabulous black leather Marc Jacobs coat teamed with a pair of the designer’s platform Kiki boots; or even a sunflower yellow hoodie and sweatpants set from streetwear label Palace. In one particularly memorable image, she sprawls across a velvet sofa as naked as the day she was born, with manicured talons as her only accessory. “Keep it Real!!???” McMenamy captioned the post.

It’s clear that McMenamy still lives and breathes fashion, even after almost four decades in the industry. When we connect, she’s holed up in the guest bedroom of her London home that has now become her second wardrobe. (What we wouldn’t give to have an hour or two playing dress-up in that closet.) “I am sitting on the floor because my dog has taken up the bed,” she says in her Pennsylvania twang, still present even after living in Britain for nearly 30 years. First things first: Why did she only decide to join Instagram as recently as this spring? “I didn’t want to do it for all this time because I thought it was cooler not to, to be quite honest,” says McMenamy. “All these people bragging about their lives, I don’t need to do that, blah blah blah. Then, over lockdown, I thought, ‘Wait a minute.’ My whole entire life since I was 16 has been dedicated to the world of fashion, except for when I took time out to have kids. It’s my life and it’s what I love. I’ve got a lot of clothes, and I love every single piece that I buy. Why don’t I just do that on Instagram?” 

Her (initially reluctant) collaborators on this weird and wonderful new venture were her children: Lily McMenamy, herself now a successful model and movement director, and Kristen’s two teenage sons with photographer Miles Aldridge. “My kids were like, ‘We don’t want to Instagram that mom!’” she says, before breaking out into an infectious cackle. “But they’ve got an Instagram mom now, so deal with it!”

One of the perks of being supermodel offspring is that they get paid to provide these Instagram snaps, at least. “They take three photos and they say, ‘I did it. Where’s my money?’ But it takes more to create an image than three photos! I’ve done a couple on self-timer, but selfies I hate because my arm gets in the way. I tried the mirror thing, but I can’t get it together,” she says. “I have invested in a lot of sunglasses, as I still can’t do my makeup after all these years, I just make myself look worse. Pat McGrath is sending me makeup which helps a lot, because it’s making me explore and try new things. They create a mood, and I can be punk if I want, ladylike if I want, intellectual if I want. Which I never do.”

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McMenamy’s approach to clothing has always been idiosyncratic—all the way back to her early years growing up as the third of seven children in a Catholic family in eastern Pennsylvania. “When I had no money, I did the thrift stores and I made up my own stuff,” she says. “I would see people laughing at me on the street and it hurt a little, as it was just me.” After making her way to New York City and doing the rounds with all the major modeling agencies, her career began in earnest upon being sent to Paris. There, she fell headfirst into the Aladdin’s cave of vintage the city offered. “I never had one style,” she says. “It’s always been a day to day, how I'm feeling, what’s the weather like kind of situation.”

This DIY, bootstrap approach to style perhaps explains why McMenamy still gravitates to emerging designers on her Instagram feed in 2021. “I buy most of my clothes online, I don’t love going to the shops,” she says. “My daughter got me into a few brands because she works with all the cool new designers, like Chopova Lowena. She was wearing one of their dresses, and I said, ‘Where did you get that dress? It’s just the most incredibly bonkers, beautiful dress!’ Since then, I’ve been a fan. I adore Marine Serre. It’s such a simple idea but it fits so correctly. I’m a Gucci girl too, and at Balenciaga, what Demna does is incredible.”

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It makes sense given that this chameleonic approach to style—a preternatural ability to blend the high with the low—has been McMenamy’s calling card in the fashion world. McMenamy made her start in the late 1980s with a shock of frizzy auburn hair, five-foot-ten stature, and striking pale skin, but it was after the legendary hairstylist Garren chopped it down to a Louise Brooks crop and dyed it black (and François Nars allegedly shaved off her eyebrows) that her arresting beauty truly shone. Quickly, she became a muse of some of the most influential figures in fashion, from Karl Lagerfeld to Steven Meisel. “When I was modeling, Karl would give me something and then I would cut it up, and I would walk back into the showroom in what was meant to be a floor-length skirt, but which was now almost a pair of underwear,” she adds. “I’m sure he was horrified.” Then came fashion’s grunge movement, where McMenamy appeared not only in Marc Jacobs’s infamous spring 1993 Perry Ellis show holding hands with Kate Moss, but also in a groundbreaking Vogue editorial shot by Meisel and styled by Grace Coddington, sealing her status as a bona fide star. 

While McMenamy’s name continues to crops up when discussing the supermodels that defined the ’90s, she still feels like something of an outlier. “I love all those girls, but when it comes to their beauty, I was like the antichrist,” she says. “I don’t know how much the common man would remember me, compared to Naomi [Campbell, a bridesmaid at McMenamy’s wedding to Aldridge] or Cindy Crawford or Christy Turlington. I don’t think anybody is going to put my poster on their bedroom wall. But I kind of like that.” 

Is McMenamy underestimating her legacy, though, given how many mood boards (and yes, bedroom walls) she remains on to this day? “I mean, I went out to my friend’s book launch the other week, and I had three people come up saying, ‘We love your Instagram, and you’re our favorite model, can we have a picture.’ My heart was bursting out of my chest, I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ Somebody said, ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ And I was like”—here McMenamy pauses before launching into a high-pitched shriek— “Bother me? Are you out of your little mind? Of course not!’ It’s wonderful to be told you’re great. Who doesn’t love that?”

One of the most charming parts of McMenamy’s Instagram presence is her comments section, where you can watch in real time as she reconnects with the friends she worked alongside during the heady days of the ’90s fashion circus. “For many different reasons, that some therapists will one day hear, I kind of didn’t talk to anybody from the industry for a while,” she says of the time period in the 2000s when she stopped modeling to focus on her family. “I really cut off from people. That made me realize that all my friends were people in the business because I worked with them day and night. It wasn’t like a normal friend going out to dinner—we did it all in the makeup room, on trips, on airplanes, in studios. When I stopped the business, I stopped my friendships in a way, which was wrong, but I only see that in hindsight. So it is really nice to connect again.”

It seems, then, that the joys of McMenamy’s Instagram are mutually beneficial. A place for her friends and fans to delight in her distinctive take on fashion, yes, but also an opportunity to carve out a new and more independent lane for her career, which has always thrived on the unexpected. It makes sense that over the past decade, McMenamy’s return to the spotlight has been somewhat tentative. “I don’t take chances anymore, as how much time do I have left?” she says. “But if there are great photographers, stylists, or filmmakers it still gets me really excited.” Still, after choosing to forgo hair dye and embrace her natural gray hair in 2010, McMenamy’s ethereal look has become more in demand than ever, appearing on the covers of Vogue Italia, i-D, and W, as well as in campaigns for the likes of Valentino, Marc Jacobs, and Balenciaga. 

As her Instagram makes obvious, her eye for fashion extends far beyond this lifelong passion to collaborate with designers and image-makers to help them to realize their most ambitious visions. With McMenamy’s knack for styling, becoming a more independent creative would seem like a natural next step. 

But not so fast. “At the bottom of this whole thing is my desire to perform. I don’t want to style other people. I’m not going to make somebody else look good, it’s all about me! I’m a hopeless narcissist,” she says, laughing guiltily. “I don’t want to be in the background, I want to be in the foreground. There was a time when I was doing a lot of acting, but I couldn’t do the English accent, so I did some good stuff but also some flops. I love reading, but I don’t know if I could write. All I can do is leave it to the stars, to the moon, and to the higher power.” Sounds like a perfect—and perfectly Kristen McMenamy—plan.