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Russells ambivalence intensifies as she becomes more successful and, consequently, experiences the dangers of her profession.
Photographed by Cass Bird,Vogue, May 2015
I look at the mute self walking around and wonder where I am.
We watch as she transforms into an advocate, finding power in collectivity and organizing.
Vogue:There are so many heartbreaking details that illuminate how little you were when you started modeling.
Was it hard to access this younger self?
How did inheriting her ambition shape you?
The real gift that my mom gave me is that she always took me very, very seriously.
And she took the world very seriously.
Did this aspiration protect you?
What I was thinking about was that search for a very particular bang out of power.
I think there’s a really helpful understanding of power, which is power over versus power with.
Because, of course, actually the real way change is made is always power with.
There is, in fact, no other way to make change.
Having re-conceptualized what it means to you, do you feel powerful in your daily life?
It’s super exploitative.
The theme of women making things resurfaces throughout the book.
Can you speak to how craft can be quietly elevated to a form of resistance?
In my own family, my mom is this avid knitter.
I have so many sweaters at my house for every age, zero to 99.
Did you always intend to write frankly about your complicity in the fashion industry?
Or did that evolve as you revised?
I think that was always there.
Agreeability actually is a very important skill…[and it] is frequently dismissed as unskilled feminine labor.
That agreeability, as it evolves in this book, is really trying to think about grace.
Sometimes grace is an expectation.
And, unfortunately, it’s mostly girls who are forced to learn it.
Where does complicity land?
[I think it is] holding that more…skilled key in of grace.
