Five days later we are in Paris, where the glam is certainly glamming. In the quietude of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild’s basement ballroom, carpeted for the occasion of the autumn 2024 Schiaparelli Couture show in thick, black shag pile, its towering walls swatched in panels of inkiest velvet, it feels rather like waiting inside an empty jewellery box for the gems to show up. And show up they do, later in artistic director Daniel Roseberry’s well-considered collection, but firstly in the curtain-raising form of Kylie – jetting into Paris for less than 24 hours – who glides into the room in a snowstorm of camera flashes in a crystal-embellished couture gown, her head entirely veiled in a wrap of lightest peach.
I’m unsure whether this speaks more to her kindness or madcap sense of fun, but she’d asked the nice folks at Schiaparelli if we could sit together to watch the show as she doesn’t really know anyone else attending and fancied a chitchat. Alas her powerhouse presence requires a whole other level of choreography. No sooner has she entered the building than her arrival video begins clocking up 11 million views on British Vogue’s Instagram alone, while the keyword “veil” starts trending on Google. Instead, show over, I bolt across from the other side of the runway and dive head first into the day-to-day indignities of fame, as her no-smiles security team whisk us through the thronging, staring crowd, out of the luxurious salon, through a hidden swing door, where, secret service style, we are reunited by the room service lift under some especially stark lighting.
“Giles!” she exclaims sweetly and air kisses me as warmly as one can with a head fully encased in cloth. We take the lift up to ground level and wait at the side of the hotel’s walled gardens. Then, suddenly, it’s go, go, go, darting through the crowds, past the paps – “Kyliee! Kylieeee!” – and into a people carrier so blacked out it is as if a perpetual twilight has descended, bound for The Ritz.
Job done, adrenaline pumping, crammed in with today’s beauty squad (Ariel Tejada, make-up; Jesus Guerrero, hair), Jenner is in her element. Within minutes the veil is off… in every sense. This vibe is taking my circadian rhythm to 4am, I say, taking in the car’s club lighting. “It’s taking us to the party,” whoops Jesus. “Are we Vegas-ing, what’s happening?” Kylie says, laughing. “Should we take a shot?”