SCENT FORTH
Like its famouus ambassador Guerlain's new fragrance is strength and femininity combined
Angelina Jolie has long rejected the notion that femininity is de ned by a singular set of characteristics. Acknowledging that every woman is multifaceted has always been key to the varied roles — including humanitarian, director, award-winning actress and mother — she comfortably inhabits. For Jolie then, who last year became the face of French cosmetics giant Guerlain’s Mon Guerlain fragrance, it was the perfect t to champion a beauty house and a fragrance whose values aligned with her own. Always one to do things on her own terms and to use her platform for good, she donated her earnings from that endorsement to charity. Now, with the arrival of Mon Guerlain’s Eau de Toilette version, Jolie is speaking to the fact that femininity and feminism don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
What does femininity mean to you? So many dierent things. There is not one version of femininity. It means dierent things at dierent times and in dierent places. It can be a certain softness and grace, but it is also women marching or ghting for their rights or the rights of others.
At what age did you feel the most at ease with your femininity? When I rst became a mother, and now. That sense of ease grows and changes with each passing year and each stage in life. For me, it is about learning to accept yourself and what life brings. Wisdom, understanding, clarity of thought — all the things that come with age — are also beautiful and feminine qualities. I'd like to think we all get better with age, men and women.
Are femininity and feminism compatible? Equality is not about us all being the same, it is about the freedom to make our own choices and live our own lives fully, not at the expense of men, but alongside men. It is not about taking each other down but building each other up. I think it is not said enough how much we need the men in our lives to be strong and capable and the best they can be.
Women today can feel like they are pulled in many directions... Women have always taken on a lot, and we are prepared to take on much more. It's in our nature. But we need to remember to take care of ourselves too. There is nothing more attractive than someone being fully themselves, without inhibition, in whatever form that takes. We all recognise it when we see it — those women whose beauty is their spirit, and their inability to be anything other than true to themselves.
How can a perfume represent femininity? By lending itself to your every mood, and escaping de nition. That
is what I love about Mon Guerlain.
How can we educate children on feminism? Through strong and diverse female role models, and also a study of the past: understanding how much the freedoms we have had to be fought for and need to be defended, and just how many women live in countries where they aren’t free today. Some of the people my children most admire are women who've lived through conict or overcome adversity. They happen to be women, but that is not what de nes them. It is their strength and their example.