Earlier this month, Iris Law made her catwalk debut in the Miu Miu show at Paris Fashion Week. Having booked her first campaign at 16, and as the daughter of actors Jude Law and Sadie Frost, one would think that being the centre of attention would come naturally. But nerves almost took over for the 19-year-old.
‘When I told people I was nervous backstage, they were saying, “It’s just one foot in front of the other,”’ she tells Grazia. ‘I got told that five or six times. But it’s more daunting than that: you’re wearing someone else’s creation. There is this pressure to live up to the design that you’re wearing. I had friends who walked in the show, and afterwards they got the shakiness. But mine was more the second the lights went down and the music went on. I was like,“Oh my god. This is really real.” It was like fight or flight. I was stunned by the moment I was in.’
She was more relaxed last week, as she hosted a private cocktail party at Mulberry’s Regent Street flagship store, bringing friends and family together. Having visited Japan with the luxury brand last year, she fell in love with their approach to design. In what she calls a ‘happy coincidence’, Mulberry already made a bag named Iris, but she was tasked with putting her own stamp on it with her Iris for Iris collection. Her version is distinguished by its colour scheme, inspired by the neon lights of Tokyo and created with her love of painting.
‘My main passion in my early teens was oil painting,’ she says. ‘Art was my favourite subject, and then it naturally moved into textiles and design. As I started getting older, wanting to express myself more through fashion, I was able to merge the two: style and art.’
She has, of course, had the perfect base training. Her parents’ careers gave her a glimpse of red-carpet style, and brought her into contact with the uber-chic Primrose Hill set, including Kate Moss. Sadie divorced Jude in 2003 after six years of marriage, citing unreasonable behaviour. Iris has said that her upbringing didn’t feel particularly rock’n’roll, but there is a sense that Sadie and Jude have impacted her style.
‘At the time, I was just a toddler,’ she says of seeing her mum head out for red-carpet events. ‘I didn’t understand it. But when I got older, I started seeing old photos: my mum going out, the way she was dressing, just via Instagram, and she had an androgynous, eclectic style. But I do remember loving her shoes: she always had amazing shoes. I guess that’s because I was really small: I was just looking down.’
Sadie was, naturally, by her daughter’s side at the Mulberry party. She has previously said that her relationship with Iris is ‘harder’ than the mother-son relationship she has with her four boys – ‘and you have to work really hard while lots of buttons are being pressed’. Iris, though, says that she has always felt supported. ‘Our family is very woman-orientated and very motherly. We’re all a big love group, and inspire each other a lot.’
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