The Making Of A Beauty Icon: Kylie

After turning her biggest insecurity, her lips, into an almost billion-dollar company, Kylie Jenner, 21, is more than just a businesswoman. She’s a social media queen and a cool mom, smashing one beauty record at a time.

- Josh Newis-Smith

Pregnancy completely changed my body at a super young age,” Kylie confides to me one-on-one, cross-legged on a bed in Los Angeles, US, referring to the birth of her daughter, Stormi Webster. “But I really don’t care.” Welcome to the world of Kylie Jenner; where insecurities are turned into power and sensational levels of scrutiny are shrugged off. “So many negative things come at me all the time,” she concedes. “Of course it does affect me, but you develop a thick skin. Nothing has lasted so long that I haven’t gotten through it, so whenever a new bad story or rumour emerges, I know it will pass, too. Everything in life is transient.”

Just as the world hangs off her every makeup application, I’m entranced by her every word. Serving girl-pal warmth, empowerment and attention, what strikes me most about this beauty icon – back at work on shoot after just a few months of maternity leave – is her sense of, dare I say it, normality. She turned up without fanfare, on time, wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans, no makeup, just a post-pregnancy glow. Kris Jenner’s arrival, however, was true Kardashian proportions: dressed in a monochrome two-piece emblazoned with Fendi logos, with larger-than-life momager sunglasses and, of course, the iconic ‘Kris cut’ that single-handedly relaunched the pixie do. But that’s exactly the type of cheerleader outfit you’d expect when your family are your biggest supporters, which is how Kylie warmly describes her grounding crew.