Q&A: Irina Lazareanu on the most romantic thing ever

Romanian-born, Montreal-raised Irina Lazareanu has pounded the runways for everyone from Chanel, Christian Dior and 3.1 Phillip Lim to Sonia Rykiel, Rick Owens and Yohji Yamamoto. But it’s her off-catwalk life that she’s famous for: She’s friends with Kate Moss, is working on her own album with Sean Lennon and has played drums for Pete Doherty and his band, Babyshambles (she’s also been romantically linked—or at least rumoured to be—with both of them). She brought her signature bangs and cool, badass appeal to the opening of the Joe Fresh Style flagship in Vancouver, and FASHION snatched a moment with her to talk all things love.

You walked in the Joe show in Toronto last spring. Did you know the company before that? “That was my first time working with them, and it was really amazing. It was my first Canadian show, my mom was there, and I felt so at home.”

This interview is for our February issue, and the theme is love. “Ooooh.”

Obviously, there are things everyone wonders about your relationships. “I love that. I’m very open—I mean, what else is there to know that people don’t already know?”

OK! So you moved to London and studied ballet, and long before you started dating him, you met Pete Doherty at a bar. “I met him at a party, a high-school party. It wasn’t anything fancy.”

And you’ve dated Sean Lennon. “I’ve never dated Sean Lennon. We’ve worked together for many years. He’s like my brother. I love Sean more than water, but it wasn’t that kind of relationship.

Is it true that the couple that works together stays together? You’ve recorded songs with Pete. “Yeah, Peter.”

You call him Peter.
“Yeah, his name is Peter. He gets offended when people call him Pete, so I do when he’s in the doghouse. When I’m mad at him, he becomes Pete!”

When is he in the doghouse? “Like, when he goes out for a cigarette and comes home three hours later. With one shoe missing!”

Are you together right now? “Um, next question!”

If you had to pick a song to describe your approach to love, what would it be? “There’s a song by the Babyshambles called—I’ve never said this, actually—‘The Whole World Is Our Playground,’ and another song I wrote in 2008 with Sean called ‘Might Not Be Single.’”

You’ve mentioned before that Oscar Wilde is an inspiration. He wrote, “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.” Is that your view of marriage? You’ve been engaged to Peter twice.
“We were engaged a couple of times. I believe in marriage. My parents have been together for 35 years and are best friends and have a perfect marriage, and I believe in that tradition. But it has to be for the right reasons and at the right time. You don’t do it for the heck of it.”

What’s the most romantic thing someone’s ever done for you? “I had a couple of songs written about me. That was pretty romantic.”

What’s the sexiest quality in a partner? “This is a cliché, but a sense of humour.”

Any deal-breakers? “A small penis. Can you write that? Somebody that’s really full of themselves. If you’re a jerk to people, I don’t think that’s sexy at all.”

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