At a studio space in Aubervilliers, a northern suburb of Paris, on her cover shoot for British Vogue , I discover a woman possessed. Endlessly leaping and twirling in youthful silhouettes from Vuitton, Marni, Bally and Wales Bonner, 2024's undisputed queen of the red carpet is, as they say, giving : face, movement, angles, legs (five foot ten in bare feet, she gets them from her mother, who stands at six foot four). From moment to moment, Zendaya morphs into Veruschka, Twiggy , Naomi , Linda . She even has Linda's hair: after appearing that morning in micro-bangs and pin-straight lengths for Schiaparelli's spring haute couture show at the Petit Palais, she now sports a swishy little pageboy cut. The cries of approval – from the photographer Carlijn Jacobs; from Zendaya's longtime stylist (or "image architect" as he prefers it), Law Roach; from her assistant-slash-hype man, Darnell ("You look beautiful!") – are breathless, in part because they can barely keep up with her.
After 10 minutes or so, she sidles in to meet me, Darnell trailing behind her. She's a different figure from the whirling dervish in Aubervilliers. Fresh-faced, with her naturally curly hair – lately an auburn-brown colour – pulled back, she's dressed in a dove grey cashmere jumper, pleated black trousers, black socks and brown slippers, a yellow silk scarf slung about her neck and a silver watch hanging from her wrist. The impression is cosy, quiet and immediately disarming, as she greets me, sweetly, with a hug. Also jet-lagged – she'd arrived in Paris late the night before and had been in fittings all day.
By the time she moved with her dad, Kazembe Ajamu Coleman, to Los Angeles for the Disney job, Zendaya knew what character, drama and costume could do. Similarly, getting done up for a step-and-repeat "gave her this real confidence, like, OK, let me put it all on and go out there and give this to the world, and then let me come home and take it all off and become myself again", Roach says. "It's so funny. People were like, 'Oh, she's so fierce.' And, yeah, she is, on the inside. But she'd rather be at home, with her hair down and no make-up, with Noon, her dog, watching a movie, probably Harry Potter ." Zendaya doesn't go much for partying. When she was in her early 20s and Roach would try to get her to go out – "I'm like, 'Go crazy! This is the time you're supposed to be in college!' " – he'd be swiftly rebuffed. "She'd be like, 'If you don't sit down and be quiet...' " he remembers with a laugh. "The funny thing about that little girl is that she has always been the same person."
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