Karen Elson's Spring Fashion Lamp 'Brighter Future' for Harper's Bazaar UK February 2021

Very independent supermodel Karen Elson covers the February 2021 issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK. Photographer Erik Madigan Heck [IG] packs up his equipment and heads to Oxfordshire with stylist Leith Clark, a long-time friend of Elson’s. Clark chooses a wide range of dramatic fashion from Alberta Ferretti, Dior, Ermanno Scervino, Etro, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Salvatore Ferragamo and more/ Hair by Hiroshi Matsushita; makeup by Andrew Gallimore

Lydia Slater conducts the interview of words spun around the spring 2022 fashion fest: Karen Elson on a brighter future.

"It felt like falling headfirst back into British life," the red-headed model activist says. "There was a house with a moat around it, built in the 1700s, there was a graveyard from the 1500s. Even the cold, the rain – give it to me! I’ve had more cups of tea this week than I ever have. And with the hair and the make-up and the beautiful location, there was a sort of wildness about it.”

Elson has missed Britain terribly, unable to travel back to her home country from Nashville, due to the pandemic.

AOC skips over the now mandatory mental health check in every model interview — although Elson does introduce “imposter syndrome” into the convo, when speaking of her success and never-ending anxiety. Much of the discussion is connected to Karen Elson’s memoir ‘The Red Flame’, published in October 2020 by Rizzoli and with Edward Enninful writing the foreward.

Speaking of her bullying experiences as a young woman, living in the comparative poverty in Oldham, north of Manchester, Elson expresses empathy for those who made her life miserable.

"In hindsight, I have a lot of empathy for all the people who bullied me. I’ve realised they were all in really bad situations. One girl was living in a very abusive household where she was coming to school with bruises on her legs all the time. And when I was last back there, I met someone I used to go to school with, who had hardly any teeth left because of drug addiction. You think, 'It could have been me.'"

Karen Elson has a new album called ‘Green’ coming in 2022.