But then she digresses: “I always saw the pitfalls of fame. I grew up in the Britney Spears era, and I understood that anonymity is a gift. I didn’t want fame, but now that I have it, I wouldn’t not want to have it.” Fox stops herself and backtracks a little — the only time during our hour-long chat that she seems uncertain about her words. “I don’t know — it really just depends on how I’m feeling. Some days, I f*cking hate it and I’m like, ‘Why did I get myself into this?’ And other days, I’m so grateful to be in this position where I can have this platform. It all really depends.”
Fox would love to one day fade into the background and let her work speak for itself, but she doesn’t think she’ll have that luxury until she’s older. Of course, grocery shopping in only her underwear might not be helping. Or the fact that she calls the paparazzi on herself — something every celeb does but will never acknowledge. “I don’t call them when I’m in my regular clothes, which some people do to keep their name in the headlines,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. “I do it when my look is amazing — if I have a designer I’m obsessed with and I want them to have their moment.”
As such, Fox isn’t interested in following the “unwritten celebrity code” of wearing luxury brands. Instead, she’s inspired by new talent doing new and unconventional things. “I’m looking for a designer who thinks outside the box, goes against the grain or does something I’ve never seen before,” she says. She adds that she’s only interested in wearing wearable art. And to say her taste is specific would be a bit of an understatement. On-set, Fox knows what she wants to try on — and even more what she doesn’t. She diligently examines every look FASHION stylist Ashley Galang has pulled and has a strong opinion about all of them, pushing most of the bigger labels to the side in favour of smaller, independent ones.
It appears that for Fox, fashion is a way of regaining control of her image and reclaiming the narrative she once lost. In one interview sound bite turned viral TikTok audio, she shares that she doesn’t dress for the male gaze anymore but for “the girls and the gays.” And based on the aggressive online reaction her looks elicit from straight men, who can blame her? “I hope that women know that men are our biggest threats,” Fox declares very nonchalantly. “They think they own our beauty and can decide who’s pretty and who’s not. But what the f*ck do they do for us? After I had my son, I realized I don’t need a man anymore. I did it — I had a kid. Now I can go be me and dress for me because I don’t need a man to ‘like me’ anymore.”