In December Yasmin Le Bon and her husband, Simon Le Bon, the lead singer of Duran Duran, celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in Las Vegas. It sounds suitably rock’n’roll but she assures me it was nothing of the sort: the band was touring, Yasmin was keeping Simon company.
“We did not a thing,” she says, laughing. No vow renewals in an Elvis chapel or wild casino sprees? “We spent the day packing for the next leg. But we were together.”
Sitting outside a café not far from her home in Putney, southwest London, Le Bon, 62, is so unaffected it’s very easy to forget she’s one of the great supermodels still standing from the 1980s. She was Elle’s first cover girl and has headed campaigns for Dior, Guess, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren — not to mention bagging her generation’s heart-throb. Yet she’s far more interested in discussing the merits of local food shops and restaurants and railing about her greatest bugbear, AI, than reminiscing about sharing the Chanel catwalk with Linda and Naomi.
Le Bon with her daughter Amber Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
She looks the height of understated cool: her black hair (which she confesses happily to dyeing) falls straight to her shoulders, her face is as striking as ever, helped — again admitted freely — by “one or two” annual Botox sessions. She’s wearing a beige bomber jacket, dark-grey mom jeans and chocolate loafers, all of which I assume are from somewhere like Fendi, for whom she recently walked the runway.
“M&S,” she says happily of the first. As for the other two items? “George at Asda.” They come in at £18 and £16 respectively.”
Of course, it’s a model’s job to make supermarket garments look couture, and as the face of George at Asda, for whom she is heading her fourth campaign, Le Bon is obliged to big it up. But there’s no doubting her sincerity when she says, “This felt very timely. I’m blessed but I have a lot of young people in my life and life is difficult for everyone. I see people all the time who just want a bit of joy; that’s harder and harder [to find]. Luxury items are becoming more and more expensive and — as much as I love them — I’m price-sensitive. I think we’ve all reached that stage.”
With Simon in 1984Shutterstock Editorial
Her daughters all pursue precarious careers: Amber, 36, is a model turned DJ; Saffron, 34, a jazz singer and Tallulah, 31, a fine art student. Le Bon is clear there’s no trust fund to fall back on, the result of Simon “signing incredibly bad deals”. No wonder the two eldest still live in the family home, with their partners and two sons apiece aged between eight and one. Tallulah lives nearby “but spends half the week with us”. Le Bon isn’t complaining. “I say, ‘Oh give me space and freedom,’ but, of course, give me too much, I’d go completely crackers.”
After three girls, four grandsons has been an eye-opener. “We were such a feminine house; now they’ve taken over. We’re thinking of banning balls indoors until their skill level improves. I could take my daughters anywhere and negotiate with them, even before they could really speak. But boys live in the moment; what I say goes in one ear and straight out the other.”
Both still highly visible (Duran Duran will headline BST Hyde Park this summer), the Le Bons are emblematic of a generation that refuses to acknowledge ageing. “We all feel quite good and youthful but your body’s actually been around for a while.” For a long time she was in denial about the results of three consecutive blood tests. “My sugars weren’t great; if I carried on I was going to be a type 2 diabetic. I was really lazy, trying to make excuses: I thought I was indestructible. But it got to the point where I had to do something.”
She eventually embarked on the Human Being Diet, conceived by the nutritionist Petronella Ravenshear. This mandates eating 100g of protein three times daily with at least a five-hour gap between meals. “There’s no snacking; you have tea and coffee with meals,” Le Bon says (although right now she’s breaking this rule by “very naughtily” enjoying a coffee with hot double cream on the side). “Before I was forever grabbing walnuts, but your body doesn’t care whether it’s nuts or jelly babies: the insulin response is exactly the same. How on earth can it do what it’s meant to if you never give your system a break?”
The results have been “unbelievable. I can’t tell you the difference in my body, the muscle tone, and that’s without doing anything else new. I feel it training but I also feel it in my day-to-day life. The other day I was power-hosing; normally that would have broken me but I felt like I hadn’t done anything.”
She also experienced a huge reduction in anxiety levels. “Before it felt like having tinnitus all the time; now I’m still surrounded by all the same issues but anxiety is not buzzing in the background.”
Le Bon is a surprisingly vulnerable soul who has had plenty of therapy. Her self-deprecation is genuine but puzzling. “I’m just honest,” she says, shrugging. “I spent so many years beating myself apart because I didn’t have some major power or skill. Basically I’m mediocre at everything.”
Her lack of confidence came from always being judged on her looks. “But now I’m a bit less hard on myself. People still think I should be doing more with my life but I’m finally at peace with not having to reinvent myself endlessly. I no longer torture myself [that] I haven’t made it to head of the United Nations or solved world poverty.”
The daughter of an Iranian photography-teacher father and English window-dresser mother, she grew up in Oxford, where aged 17 she was scouted by an agent.
The model was scouted when she was 17Simon emmett/sTYLED BY YASMIN LE BON FOR GEORGE AT ASDA
She was 21 when she married Simon at the Oxford register office, in the city’s ugliest square with “an overwhelming smell of piss”. The affair was so last-minute Le Bon left her grandmother off the guest list. The night before, she realised she had nothing to wear that wasn’t black. “First thing in the morning, my father drove me to central Oxford; the first door open was Benetton.” She grabbed a fluffy fawn and cream sweater dress. Has she still got it? “Oh good God no. I looked terrible. Simon had to really love me to marry me like that. But the only way was up. I’ve since looked at other people getting married, all caught up in wanting to make it memorable, and I’m like, ‘Honestly, what’s memorable is the rest of your life. Save your money.’”
Le Bon is “quite shocked” at her long marriage. “I thought I’d have probably got rid of him by now.” She declares the secret — “a shared sense of humour” — and that for the first 15 years the couple sometimes spent months separated pursuing their careers. “It was really healthy; I was very young and I needed to assert myself. We were quite competitive with each other and having time apart made us want to get back together.”
Today, in contrast, she joins Simon on the road whenever possible. “Duran all love touring and he and I make it a joyful time.” Does she ever get sick of hearing Rio and Planet Earth? “Never. I see them night after night and am always amazed how he does it. I used to try and keep up with him and be up front but my energy levels… ” She shakes her head and laughs.
Yet she’s not “complacent” about her relationship. “I might wake up tomorrow and feel entirely different [about her marriage]. That doesn’t mean I’m walking on eggshells. I laugh hysterically every day and adore my husband and want to kill him at the same time.”
As the meme says: “Divorce? Never. Murder? Every single day.” “Exactly! It’s only if I just don’t care that there’s a problem.” With that she’s off to check out the new “bouji” kitchenware shop, before a lunchtime bowl of homemade chicken soup.
The new Styled by Yasmin collection will be available from Tuesday 26th May at Asda (asda.com)
Yasmin Le Bon’s Perfect Weekend
Lark or owl?
Both.
Breakfast in bed or morning workout?
Morning workout.
Coffee or matcha?
Tea.
Tiger grandma or free-range?
Tiger grandma. I can be quite strict.
Gig or sofa?
Gig.
Heels or flats?
Who lives like that? I have to have every kind of shoe.
Wine or water?
White wine.
Signature dish?
Roast potatoes. Parboil them for much longer than they say.
Last thing you googled?
Garden hoses.
Couldn’t get through the weekend without…
Wine!