Primrose Archer - Anglaise - 1m74 - 80/62/84
Agences
Premium
The Lions
Vogue Grande-Bretagne
Décembre 2018
Steven Meisel
Vogue Grande-Bretagne
Février 2019
Alasdair McLellan
From Farm To Vogue Cover: Meet Primrose Archer British modelling's newest face has the backstory of a Jane Austen heroine - and the willful personality to match. Truth stranger than fiction? Yes, if the central character is Primrose Archer. With a name that’s redolent of hedgerows and country folk, it’s apt that she grew up on a working farm in Worcestershire. One of ten siblings, Archer spent much of her adolescence herding cattle and feeding chickens morning and night. “I’m number eight,” she sighs, on the phone from the countryside, “but we all help out. We love it.” Add to that scythe-sharp cheekbones, a rosebud mouth, and corn-coloured hair, behind which peek out violet eyes on the cover of British Vogue’s December issue, and you’ve got the basic tenets of an Austen heroine (albeit one that’s time-hopped to 2018). But the next part? You couldn’t make it up. “Oh, this isn’t my first time in Vogue,” says Archer, wonderfully blunt in her west Midlands accent. The eighteen-year-old is the relative unknown of four cover stars fronting Vogue this month, alongside Stella Tennant, Adut Akechand Saffron Vadher, but it seems she’s an old hand. “Tim Walker photographed my family in August 2005, on our farm, when I was five. I was that annoying, confident little girl trying to get in front of every shot,” she laughs.
That confidence has stuck: fast-forward thirteen years and she’s shooting in New York with Steven Meisel for her first cover story. “He makes you forget you’re modelling, it’s like you’re just hopping around,” she says. “We got on very well – it was weird. It’s like I just knew what he wanted. It was a dream. He was directing me and I just danced and danced.” Modelling runs in the family. Archer was spotted at Birmingham’s Clothes Show Live, where her older sister, Katie, was also scouted. “We’ve all done a bit, really,” she says, of her four brothers and five sisters. “My brother Tom, too; and Blue just did some pictures for a little magazine.” Is there sibling rivalry? “All in jest,” she insists, “but Katie and Tom were quite dismissive." A brief appearance in Vogue's May issue, photographed in Comme des Garçons alongside a profile of the designer Rei Kawakubo, didn't impress. "They said, ‘Until you’ve been to New York, you haven’t made it.’ Then I flew to New York to shoot a British Vogue cover. It was like, ‘One point to Prim!’” Beckoning international stardom hasn’t curtailed her farming duties. “Today I was helping move the cows over the road. We all have our responsibilities. Dad will just come in and pick someone to go and help him," she says. “I love coming to cities but I am such a country girl. I miss the wide open spaces. And I miss my dog.” At home, Archer is either drinking tea and watching movies or careening around the countryside on her bike, in between bouts of cliff-diving and free-running with her boyfriend. She’s excited for the future. “The Vogue cover is a very big deal for me,” she says. “Being one of ten siblings, it’s hard to get any time with your parents on your own. My mum told me she’s really proud of me, and that’s very meaningful.” What’s next on the bucket list? “I’m not hoping for anything specific – I’m just trying to let things happen. I’ll just keep trying.” From Farm To Vogue Cover: Meet December 2018 Cover Star Primrose Archer | British Vogue