Who is Audrey Kitching? She's just the most famous girl you've never heard of. She's the internet's best kept secret; well, as secret as you can be with 126K followers on Twitter and 285K followers on Instagram...
Audrey is a lot of things, rolled into one. Nylon has called the pink-plumed pop culture princess from Philly USA 'this generation's "it kid".' Shooting to e-fame via her 2006 blog about being rock band Fall Out Boy's hair stylist, Audrey and her trademark bubblegum hair quickly gathered a huge fanbase and US pop culture site Spin Media (then _Buzzne_t) signed her up as Style Editor in 2010. She now gets 3m page views a month. Audrey's also a PETA activist, a model, a fashion designer (her third fashion line, Luna, launches in Spring, she's recently collaborated on a shoe line with Milanese designer Kerol D and she sells crystals online at Crystal Cactus.) Oh, and she's working on two books: a vegan cookbook and a budget fashion tome called The Budget Bible.
Is Audrey's multi-hyphenated world making your head hurt yet? We caught up with her for a chat about all things Kit(s)ching.
The Debrief: Hey, Audrey! Tell us about becoming a pre-Bieber internet phenomenom.
Audrey Kitching: Hey! I had a bit of a weird start actually. I started out as a hair stylist, touring with lots of big rock bands like Fall Out Boy. I had a blog on Live Journal at the time and I'd post pictures that I'd taken. It was 2006, so it was before blogging was this 'big thing' that I was doing it. As I grew up - and Buzznet got huge - my style evolved and I became more fashion-focused and started designing, too. I now have 10 people working with me on all my projects.
The DB: Your pink hair soon made you pretty infamous. How long has it been pink for?
AK: Almost eight years now! I've always wanted pink hair. I remember being like 15 years old in my pink bedroom and seeing a girl with pink hair and thinking... one day, I'm gonna have pink hair! It actually seems natural to me now. I may eventually change my hair colour, when I am 60 and don't feel like pink hair anymore... but we'll see.
The DB: Is it super high maintenance?
AK: I got it re-coloured every seven to eight weeks with a hair colour called cotton candy at this LA salon called Ulta. I have to bleach my hair first, then add the pink. I only wash it a few times a week, as it's really curly and also as that helps keep the colour. And I use deep conditioning treatments to help keep the bubblegum colour. My hair's naturally strawberry blonde and if I wash it too much it goes this weird yellow colour!
**The DB: Do people assume you're a bimbo because you have bubblegum pink hair? **
**AK: **My friends understand that it's just for fun, but I think a lot of people walking down the street think I'm pretty crazy! Sometimes when I walk down the street I wish I had brown hair, because it can be really hard to just go to the grocery store... My friends will be like 'those people have been staring at you for half an hour' and I'm completly oblivious, as I am so used to it. People who don't know me, or don't follow me, sometimes question it. I just tell people I'm having fun and they shouldn't be afraid of that or take me too seriously!
The DB: Well you can stick two fingers up to them; you're now an alt fashion and beauty pin-up! Have you always been into wild clothes?
AK: Oh yeah. Growing up my mum and me would just go and make outfits for me to wear to school. I grew up where that was normal. I started making my own clothes and putting it on my blog and people would ask where it was from! The thing is, I don't dress like this all the time. Somedays I will wear jeans and a t-shirt and then on other days I will wear a rainbow-coloured dress.
**The DB: You've also modelled for Vera Wang though and Vogue Italia - and been a judge on **Germany's Next Top Model. So the fashion industry totally gets your pink hair, no?
AK: Well, some people in the fashion industry are very serious and sometimes don't get my hair - it's silly. But there's plenty of fun people out there too. With GNTM they asked me to be a guest judge - and it was actually really crazy. They blindfolded the girls and made them pose with cockroaches. We had to place the roaches on the girls... and they all just started screaming!
The DB: What about the other models with pink hair - Charlotte Free and (sometimes pink/green/blue) Chloe Noorgard. Do you all hang out like a My Little Pony gang of pals?
AK: Yes, I love those girls! They're the most down to earth girls and they just have fun with it like I do. I don't know if we'd be on each other's radar if I didn't have pink hair. Which is really funny, when you think about it.
The DB: Your look is very Harajuku dolly. Have you been to Japan much?
AK: I've never actually been! The warehouse for my Audrey Kitching clothing lane was based in Tokyo though. I've heard Japanese girls really liked it. I'm going in the fall for the first time and I am really excited.
The DB: I think you're going to be their new pin-up!
AK: I do have a great fanbase there!
The DB: Lastly, you've described yourself as a funny nutcake which I love. Is that what life's about? Embracing your nuttiness?
**AK: **I don't really think about how other people perceive me. You know how some people won't say what's on their brain, because they don't want to sound crazy? I don't have that filter!
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.