‘OMG it’s Katie Holmes!” I want to scream as she materialises on my computer screen, smiling beatifically in a smock top, her unadorned face and wet hair making her look far younger than her 45 years. “It’s dry adjacent,” she says with a laugh when I ask about the hair. “I got caught in the rain today without an umbrella. But it was warm rain so it was funny.”
Speaking over Zoom from her New York apartment, Holmes seems significantly more relaxed and happy than most people you speak to over Zoom, which either makes her a relaxed and happy person or a good actor. You’ll already know she’s a good actor if you’ve watched Batman Begins (2005) or all 128 episodes of Dawson’s Creek, the iconic teen drama that aired from 1998 to 2003 and made stars of Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson. For anyone who came of age in the late 1990s, Holmes will for ever be Joey Potter, a doe-eyed tomboy in a bib top with earnest lines like, “I’m tough, and I’ll always walk with my head held high, and they can’t crush me.” A sentiment more prescient than Holmes could ever have known.
Depending on your proclivities, you either wanted to date Joey or be Joey — maybe both. You also wanted to dress like Joey, whose wardrobe still provides a masterclass in laid-back Nineties style. While Joey may have been consigned to the annals of TV history, you could well still find yourself wanting to dress like Holmes: that rare person who somehow makes you not only want her jeans, her coat, her ballet pumps and her handbag, but persuades you that you would actually pull them off.
Case in point: late summer 2019, when Holmes was photographed hailing a cab in a soft beige cashmere bralet and cardie by the New York label Khaite. The look promptly went viral, spawning a cardigan trend of some persistence. “I was very surprised,” she says now. “When I ordered it I thought, ‘Oh, that’s so cool — it feels so sexy to wear a matching bra with your sweater.’ I pictured myself lounging in front of a fireplace. I don’t even have a fireplace, but in my head, you know? And then I just wore it the way Khaite had shown it [on the catwalk]. But in my head I was wearing it camping.”
Ask her if she’s one of those lucky people who has an innate sense of style, however, and she modestly refutes it. “No, I’m not. I really look at other people that have an innate sense of style. And I’m like, ‘Oh — that with that! OK, that’s cool.’ I’m always looking for inspiration. I like to mix and match classic pieces. I like vintage a lot. Living in New York City I have to have things that are practical and comfortable. The city influences my style. Usually I’m in ballet flats, sneakers, baggy jeans and a T-shirt. I like putting it together in a way that doesn’t look like you put it together.”
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That Holmes never set out to be a style icon is the essence of her charm. In a world saturated with influencers posing in ever more self-conscious ways, Holmes feels truly authentic; a working mum casually going about her business. She doesn’t court the lens or document her #OOTDs on social media, yet we know about them anyway because the paparazzi trail her as relentlessly as they once did Princess Diana. While Diana’s privacy was compromised by marrying a future king, Holmes’s was compromised not so much by her own fame as her marriage to Tom Cruise, a six-year union that enthralled the world and ended in 2012 with her renouncing Scientology and gaining her freedom. (We are told all questions about her relationships are strictly off limits today.)
And so on to her collaboration with APC, the cult French brand that practically invented classic, utilitarian style, and which Holmes has been wearing regularly since the Nineties. Last summer she took an enjoyable deep dive into the brand’s archives in the Rue Royale, Paris, working alongside the APC founders Jean and Judith Touitou to create a capsule wardrobe that fuses Parisian chic with her own inimitable New York style. Standouts include a boho blouse, some wedge sandals and the Grace bag, a quilted leather affair with a two-tone clasp, which costs £770. “It’s a bag that you can use all the time — simple, affordable and classic. I like the size. It’s not too big, so you don’t have so much unnecessary stuff that you’re carrying around. I am usually a small bag person. I like the organisation that comes with only being allowed to have a small space.”
It sounds as though no attention to detail was spared. “Our T-shirts are pretty long, because it drives me crazy when you move and a T-shirt rides up,” she says, adding that they were inspired by a picture of Jane Birkin. The late Nineties/early Noughties were another inspiration. “I remember the Nineties as being about looking really simple and very natural. That’s what I wanted this collection to embody — pieces that are cool but not recognisable and can fit into your existing wardrobe seamlessly. Pieces that will last you years, with that edge of classic French style.”
As an avowed jeans fan, it was important to get the denim right. “I like dark denim and prefer a high waist, which the jeans that we created together have,” she says. “Ours have an elongated leg and a flare, which make the proportions look great.” So she won’t be buying into the much-vaunted skinny jeans revival? “I think it’s wonderful for people who have never had that chapter in their life,” she says diplomatically. “I’ve already had it, so I feel satisfied. I don’t need to revisit.”
While some actors might resent talking about the roles that made them famous a quarter of a century ago, Holmes is happy to reminisce about her time on Dawson’s Creek. She even credits the show with sparking her interest in fashion. “I feel my education in clothes and their meaning came out of working in television and movies, working with great costume designers and having it explained to me what it means if a character has a cable-knit sweater over a plain sweater, and how that reveals a part of them. I fell in love with thinking like that, and letting the clothes really dictate a certain part of someone’s essence.”
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• How Katie Holmes became a street‑style icon
Did she keep any of Joey’s outfits? “I did. I kept the sneakers that she wore in the first episode of the first season. They were little black and white sneakers that I thought embodied the character.”
Since she’s a fan of similar sneakers — Adidas Sambas — I explain to her the recent furore over the prime minister’s appearance in the shoe, and how it sent fans into a dilemma over whether to continue wearing them. “OK, thank you for letting me know,” she laughs. “I was worried.” Can she put the nation’s mind at rest by revealing whether she still wear hers? “Yes!”
She also wears a nose ring, but is vague about why she got her nose pierced three years ago. “Um … I don’t know. I just felt like I thought it was pretty.”
Her daughter, Suri, turned 18 in April and is frequently papped walking alongside Holmes in New York, eyes down with the same studious avoidance as her mum. Did motherhood change her sense of style? “Um,” she says. “Hmm.” Long pause. “I feel like, in some ways, yes. When my child was really small I was drawn to wearing a lot of dresses. You do go through these different phases of motherhood and they inform what you feel comfortable in and what you don’t. So over the years my style has changed here and there.” Does she hope to pass down her wardrobe to Suri? “Um, sure. I mean, I’ve saved some things here and there. But she has her own sense of style and her own expressions.”
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It sounds as though Holmes has been spared the stage where she’s having her favourite jumper nicked. “Sometimes the basics definitely disappear,” she says with a laugh. “But that’s fine.”
I tell her that when Style interviewed the Dawson’s Creek alumnus Joshua Jackson (who played her love interest, Pacey Witter) last year, he spoke about being part of a Dawson’s Creek WhatsApp group. “Um … really?” she says, looking faux outraged, then dissolving into laughter. “No! All of us text every now and then, but I wasn’t aware of the WhatsApp. But you know what? I’m really bad at WhatsApp. I never check it because it’s a little too much.” She says she still keeps in touch with the cast. “I mean, every now and then. Everyone’s grown up and is busy, but the bond will for ever be there.”
Bonds are important to Holmes, be they friendship or family. She’s extremely close to her parents, so much so that she enlisted her mother, Kathleen, a keen quilter — 100 limited-edition quilts inspired by one made by Kathleen are part of the APC collection. “I left home at 18 to start working, and my mom has always sent me quilts throughout all the different stages in my life. There’s such a tangible beauty to having something that was made by the hands of your mother around you. Quilts have always had such meaning to me.”
What keeps her grounded? “Definitely holding on to things, paying attention to the people in your life, holding them close. I like yoga. I love dance class. I love walking.” The gym, not so much. “I did that chapter,” she says, laughing. “You know what I do now? I go to the gym to get a smoothie, and then I leave.”
In August she starts rehearsals for a revival of the classic American play Our Town, directed by Kenny Leon, due to open on Broadway in September. After making her directorial debut with last year’s Rare Objects (in which she also starred), Holmes is also working on putting together her next directing project. “It’s a love story, because I feel like people need to see love stories,” she says (she “loved” One Day, and binged it in two nights). “We’re looking for financers — that’s part of the process. If you know anyone in London …”
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She says she loves London, name-checking the Covent Garden Hotel and the fish restaurant J Sheekey as favourite haunts, but says she’ll always live in New York. “I’d like to continue to write and direct my own films. Maybe write a few books — fiction.” And also — be still, our beating hearts — maybe launch a skincare range. “Absolutely, I would love to!” she beams, loyally attributing her current glow to the products of Dr Barbara Sturm. While it’s hard to tell at the remove of a computer screen, her glow seems more than skin deep. Katie Holmes seems really happy, and we are here for it.
APC x Katie Holmes is in store and online now, apcstore.co.uk
