We love when Vogue publishes an interview with Rihanna because they set the scene like you are reading a novel.
This interview was conducted at a restaurant called Caviar Kaspia in Paris close to midnight.
According to Vogue Rihanna was sitting alone and she immediately took control of the conversation, chatting about everything thing including pregnancy fashion, Rocky getting out of the friend zone, and her baby shower.
Read below:
I scan the room for signs of a celebrity entourage.
Anitta, the Brazilian pop star, is holding court by the impressively draped windows, flitting from table to table in a crystal-studded mini. By the looks of it, Rihanna and her crew have yet to arrive—because when has timekeeping ever been her strong suit?
Then I notice the host is beckoning me from the far side of the restaurant. Turns out Rihanna is already here, ensconced in a corner by herself, waiting.
“I know the skirt is Junya, but girl, can I ask who makes that denim jacket?” she says as I approach her table.
Nothing escapes Rihanna’s exacting eye, especially when it comes to fashion.
I tell her it’s Junya too, an archive piece from an earlier collection that I recently scored on The RealReal.
“It’s good,” she says, nodding approvingly.
She’s curled up on the banquette in an oversized khaki parka with a slinky turquoise catsuit beneath, a look I recognize from Stella McCartney’s last show.
Her shoe of choice? A four-inch stiletto heel.
Like all the best moments in her style repertoire, the outfit is a study in opposites—sexy, cool, sophisticated—and worn with her characteristic ease.
In fact, for a very brief moment, with her hair swept away from her face in a loose bun, subtly glossed lips, and a dusting of gold makeup, I almost miss the baby bump. “As much as it’s happening, it’s also not happening,” she says, patting her belly, only partially visible above the table. “Sometimes I’ll walk past my reflection and be like, Oh shit!”
We settle in and she persuades me to order the house’s famous dish: baked potato topped with caviar, an indulgence she enjoyed before she was pregnant. She’s already had a bite to eat, but I came hungry. These days, she says, her cravings tend more sweet than salty.
“I usually hate desserts, but all of a sudden you come close to me with a chocolate-covered donut and you’ve got my heart forever,” she says, giggling. Tangerines are a thing too. She eats them by the dozen, sprinkled with salt. Yes, salt.
“It has to be with salt and only with salt because in Barbados we take our fruits to the ocean and soak them,” she insists. “Trust me, it really is a thing.”
About her pregnancy fashion
“Rihanna is just so fearless, so for me, it’s always a question of ‘How do we make this look make sense for who she is?’ ” says her stylist.
Suddenly what had essentially been all sweetness and light becomes a far more risqué fashion proposition. “To me, that dress is actually the closest thing to maternity clothes that I’ve worn so far,” Rihanna insists.
“And we hadn’t really done lady that whole time. So I was like, Let’s do lady!” (Naturally, Rihanna’s idea of “lady” includes little more than jewel-encrusted belly chains and a strappy G-string from her Savage X Fenty line. “Listen,” she deadpans, “they were going to see my panties regardless. So they’d better be mine.”)
This is the dress they are referring to:
When I found out I was pregnant, I thought to myself, There’s no way I’m going to go shopping in no maternity aisle. I’m sorry—it’s too much fun to get dressed up. I’m not going to let that part disappear because my body is changing.”
When I bring up the subject of maternity jeans, she rolls her eyes: If it’s not something she would have worn before she was pregnant, then it’s not something she’s going to wear now. To be sure, working outside the traditional bounds of pregnancy style comes with its fair share of challenges—just ask her stylist.
“I know he loses sleep over it because my measurements can literally change from hour to hour,” she says. “In fact, I’m sure he’s going to ask for a raise after this!”
I’m hoping that we were able to redefine what’s considered ‘decent’ for pregnant women,” she tells me.
“My body is doing incredible things right now, and I’m not going to be ashamed of that. This time should feel celebratory. Because why should you be hiding your pregnancy?”
About Rocky leaving the friend zone
If there’s one person on the planet who can match the risks she takes with fashion, it’s Rocky. “Like iron sharpening iron,” is how Rihanna describes their style rapport.
(The rapper, who was friends with Rihanna for years before they were romantically linked, described her in GQ last May as “the love of my life. I think when you know, you know.”)
“People don’t get out of the friend zone very easily with me,” she says. “And I certainly took a while to get over how much I know him and how much he knows me because we also know how much trouble we can land each other in.”
Some of us will recall exactly what kind of trouble she means, starting with their first encounter at the VMAs in 2012 when Rocky joined Rihanna for a performance of her hit single “Cockiness.”
Midway through the performance, as they were dancing side by side, Rocky pulled a surprisingly cavalier move.
“He grabbed my ass on stage.
That was not part of the rehearsal!” she says.
“I was like, What are you doing!?”
Her team braced themselves for an upset Rihanna. Instead, she let it go.
“My manager was like, Oh, God, she must like this guy a little bit. She never lets this shit slide.”
This was the performance:
Gradually, Rihanna let her guard down, and things became serious when the world went into COVID lockdown.
“He became my family in that time,” she says.
Part of it was an epic road trip they took in summer 2020 from Los Angeles to New York.
Meandering across the country on a big tour bus, they were able to get away from the glare of the public eye.
They’d park and Rihanna would grill barefoot while Rocky tie-dyed T-shirts picked up at the gas station.
“I cooked our food on this little janky grill I bought from Walmart,” she remembers.
“I still have it, too. It works like nobody’s business.” No matter where they stopped, they always had fun.
“I love the simple things but also the grand adventures,” she says. “There’s no pretentious my-brand-your-brand bullshit, it’s just us living,” she says of their existence together. “I just feel like I can do any part of life by his side.”
By the time the holidays rolled around, she was ready to bring him home. Barbados had been closed to visitors for much of that year, and Rihanna was dying to see her family. Now she knew she’d have company. “It was us who were going home,” she says.
“We were going home.”
Her mom, according to Rihanna, is usually a tough nut to crack, but she warmed to Rocky right away.
“My mother has a really good read on people. She observes first and then she’ll move slowly. I guess I’m like that too,” she says.
“There are some guys that I’ve dated that she won’t even look at to this day. But she was charmed by him from the jump.”
Though he was born and raised in Harlem, Rocky has roots tracing back to Barbados too: His late father emigrated from the Caribbean island.
“To see him in a space where he’s imagining his dad as a boy, walking the same streets as his dad walked, eating the same food as his dad ate, it was really heartwarming.”
I ask Rihanna what she loves most about their relationship. As if on cue, her phone starts to buzz. It’s Rocky on FaceTime. She turns the camera around to give him a view of the scene. “Look, can you see how everything in here has been Virgil-ified?”
They exchange I love yous before hanging up, their ease and warmth palpable. “What I love the most about us?
Transparency with everything: how we’re feeling, what our goals are, what our fears and insecurities are. The vulnerability to be able to say what you feel about each other.”
Like everyone else in the world, I’m also curious to know if they’d been planning to have a baby. “Planning? I wouldn’t say planning. But certainly not planning against it. I don’t know when I ovulate or any of that type of shit.
We just had fun,” she says. “And then it was just there on the test. I didn’t waste any time. I called him inside and showed him. Then I was in the doctor’s office the next morning and our journey began.”
About her baby shower
Along with maternity jeans, she has a list of other pregnancy do’s and don’ts, starting with the baby shower.
“No brunch, no blush tones. And no animal-shaped nothing,” she says, shaking her head. “I mean it’s lit for a lot of people—I’ve even planned a couple of baby showers like that myself—it’s just not right for me.
Personally, I want a party. I want everyone to be plastered and crawling out. And it’s got to be co-ed!
Don’t put me on no wicker chair somewhere with gifts at my feet where everyone is staring at me.”
A gender-reveal party is off the table too. “I asked my doctor: Is something wrong with me for not wanting this?
Because people keep asking me. Am I a bad mom? When we’re ready to tell the world, we’ll just tell them.”
What will the baby wear?
But let’s back up a bit, to the more urgent matter of what the baby will wear.
I’m so behind on everything,” she says with a sigh. “I haven’t bought anything yet.”
Not even a onesie? Nope. Some toys for the crib perhaps? “No, Chioma! You’re not hearing me. Not. A. Single. Thing!” she says, clapping her hands with each word for emphasis.
In the immediate future—as in tomorrow afternoon—there’s a shopping trip planned to Bonpoint and Baby Dior.
The one item of baby clothing she does have so far is a mini bathrobe, a gift from her hotel in Paris, an exact replica of the one she’s been lounging around her room in.
“It is legit the tiniest, cutest robe I have ever seen in my whole life,” she says, beaming.
This feels like the right moment to ask her the unthinkable: What if this child, born to the world’s most stylish couple, isn’t into fashion at all? “Don’t say that! You just broke my heart!” she says, exploding with laughter.
“Yo! That is the day that I will have a problem if my child don’t like fashion? What?? You’ve got me so nervous!”
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Read the entire editorial here.
