Penelope Cruz On Lingerie, Life Balance and Zoolander 2

New York Fashion Week front rows are filled with actors. But Penelope Cruz is hardly just another actor—the legendary beauty is an Oscar winner, with an IMDB page most other actors would kill for. And besides, she also happens to be a designer. Cruz is in NYC to visit the stand alone store of the more accessibly priced off-shoot of Agent Provocateur, L’Agent, in Nolita. The jewel box of a shop with walls decorated withwispy, pretty lacy lingerie is celebrating its first year—and the launch of its first swimwear collection. Cruz serves as co-designer of the brand, alongside her sister Monica Cruz and Agent Provocateur’s creative director Sarah Shotton. BAZAAR stopped by the quiet, sunny street post-Carolina Herrera—the only show of the week Cruz sat front row in support of her fellow Spaniard—to talk lingerie, life balance and Zoolander 2.

Harper’s BAZAAR: What drew you to Agent Provocateur initially?

Penelope Cruz: Well I’ve been a fan of Agent Provocateur for a long time, kind of a collector. Then my sister was working with them—she was doing a campaign. She and I have designed different brands for the last 20 years, and we wanted to keep going in that direction. She and Agent Provocateur talked about this idea of us being partners—and we got really excited about it. We connected immediately and got a plan in place. L’Agent is a very long term relationship—and we are really happy and surprised at how fast it’s growing, and the fact that we now have stores in London, New York, L.A, all over Europe—and many, many more to come within the next two or three years.

HB: How do you approach designing the collection so it is approachable?

PC: That was one of our first motivations, our main motivations—to create a line that is for everybody and that many more people can have access to. I think that the quality and the design is really good, many things are on the level of Agent Provocateur- I wouldn’t say the Soirée line [one of the brand's most high end], but it is really, really great quality. Sarah Shotton is the mind and talent behind Agent Provocateur for so many years, and she’s teaching us so much. We wanted to have sizes for all types of women, all kinds of sizes, we wanted to have a line that was for everyone.

​HB: And, tell me about your personal lingerie philosophy? Has beautiful lingerie always been important to you?

PC: I’ve always loved it. But when we design we have in mind the pieces still have to be comfortable—that is the basic of everything because you can fall in love with one corset, and one bra, and if it’s not comfortable enough, you’re going to wear it twice. We want pieces that people are going to wear over and over. And they look great and sexy and they’re a bit risqué some of the pieces, but comfortable.

​HB: And how do you think age plays into it? Do you think lingerie is for any age?

PC: That’s another thing that we always have in mind when we design, it’s not just for a twenty year old. Some of the pieces I’m thinking about are for pregnant women. My sister was in one of the campaigns that I directed, and she was nine months pregnant! I wanted her to be one of the women in the campaign and she looked amazing.

HB: And how is it working with your sister. You said you’ve designed with her for a long time, but what is the process like?

PC: It’s really simple actually, because we used to do this when we were little. We used to hide ourselves in the bathroom—our house was very small—so the bathroom was like a secret place to hide and hear no noise from anybody. We used to hide there with fashion magazines, and draw on top of the other designs and people and change it and transform it. So this is you know, like a dream come true.

HB: Obviously you’ve had an incredible acting career, and you’ve had roles that have nothing to do with your physicality, but you always really bring it to the red carpet and seem to enjoy fashion. How do you find that balance so well?

PC: Well, because I think when I’m playing a character, I really try to be that character, and give whatever she needs, and leave my ego behind. The movie I just produced, Mama, I play a cancer patient. I have to be completely bald, really sick, show my body with one scar—which they add in post production—and it’s a very delicate subject, and very serious and it had to be represented [with] honesty and truth, and I don’t think I have to force that, I’m just not thinking about, ‘does this look good or bad?’ I’m thinking, is this what the character needs right now? And then, the days where you have to present a movie, present a project. It’s like dress up, you know, especially now because I have to kids, I’m in in jeans and comfortable shoes, so it’s fun, you get to wear amazing things from the best designers.

HB: Overll, how do you find balance? As a mom of two, acting, designing, how do you find the time for everything?

PC: Hm, I don’t know. I know in theory what I have to do. But it’s hard for me, I’m not very good at finding time for myself. My top priority is my kids, and I also work, so my mission is to try to find a little bit, like you know, quiet time everyday. Even if it’s a half an hour, but I think that’s really important—but sometimes hard to do.

HB: And can you tell us anything about working on Zoolander 2?

PC: I had a great time. I was there almost three months in Italy. And I mean for all of the fans of the first one, I can tell them, I’m almost 100% sure, no I’m 100% sure, that this is going to be even better! It’s really funny. It’s hilarious. Ben is such a hard worker and so talented, and you know to be there everyday with Ben and Owen, I laughed a lot. And Ben is very serious when he’s working, but he forgets that he’s wearing these absurd outfits when he’s directing me. I laughed a lot.

K: It’s an easy industry to poke some fun at.

PC: But it’s great!

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My Husband’s a Lingerie Photographer, and I Hate Lingerie

You know the saying about the shoemaker’s children and how they have no shoes? In my case, the lingerie photographer’s wife has no lingerie.

When I tell people what my spouse does for a living, I typically get one of three reactions. (1) ”Does he need an assistant?” (usually from the men), (2)”How do you deal with that?” (often followed by a pitying look at my 5-foot-2, decidedly not lingerie-model-material frame), and (3) ”Does he get to take the stuff home with him?”

Usually, I smile politely at these questions and explain that no, my husband doesn’t need an assistant who would most likely sit there drooling while he works his butt off; that I used to get jealous, but now I understand that when you see girls discussing how to handle their tampon strings while modeling crotchless panties, it sort of takes the romance out of it; and lastly, yes, he could bring laundry bags of the aforementioned crotchless panties home, but they’d only be used to line the hamster’s cage.

I’ve never liked lingerie. I remember the first time I tried some on, how salacious and daring I felt taking the lacy corsets off their hangers. I was 18, off at college with a bit of hard-earned retail-job money to burn, and buying a sexy negligee or two felt like a rite of passage.

And then I got the thing on my body, and the fantasy fell apart.

The wires made my boobs stick out awkwardly, and I couldn’t stop picking the G-string out of my tush. There were holes in specific places (for easy access, I assumed), but my versions of the specified parts didn’t fall exactly where the holes did, which gave the getup a moth-eaten feel. It wasn’t comfortable, and I definitely didn’t feel sexy. Hell, I looked better naked. What was the point?

As years went on, I tried settling for lacy panties and bras, but these brought their own little dramas. The sexy underwear gave me decidedly unsexy pantylines. The bras looked nice, but they weren’t supportive like my utilitarian beige underwires, so I felt like my clothes didn’t fit right when I wore them. Plus, why spend $40 on a pair of undies when I could buy a five-pack of Hanes for 10 bucks?

I also couldn’t wrap my head around the push-ups and padded bras. Sure, they could make your cleavage look heavenly, but if the whole point was to attract a guy … what would happen when you eventually took the bra off? Because let’s be real, that was bound to happen at some point, and then what?  

So, when I met my husband, it was a match made in heaven. He worked for 10 hours a day with buxom models, shooting all sorts of incredible outfits designed to stimulate and entice. When he came home, what he found most novel and startlingly sexy was a pair of granny panties. I cleaned out my lingerie drawer and filled it with workout gear, deciding I’d rather feel good about my body for what it could do rather than how some carefully positioned wires and silk made it look.

I’ve got nothing against lingerie. I understand that it makes many people feel sexy and empowered, and I’m a huge fan of the industry, considering it helps pay my mortgage. But I’m perfectly content with my cotton no-show Target-bought underwear, comfy, supportive bras, soft tank tops, and oversize men’s boxers. 

Because in the end, it all comes off anyway — and that’s when the real fun begins.

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