Model Sam Rollinson talks Instagram, Karl Lagerfeld and the moment she caught a Jigglypuff on Pokémon GO
Mild-mannered Sam Rollinson is getting animated about Instagram. “There’s nothing that annoys me more than oversharing,” says the 21-year-old model. “It grinds my gears. If you’re having afternoon tea, or at a Michelin-starred restaurant, then fair enough. But I don’t care if you’re having scrambled eggs and an avocado. It makes me livid. The arrogance!”
Rollinson has a pathological aversion to the showy. She might be a model but she prefers to share pictures of herself and her mates drinking at Benicassim to choreographed selfies, and rolls her eyes at the mention of Twitter. “Me on Twitter is just me retweeting loads of things I find funny,” she says. “They’ve got this account called Primary School Probs, and there’s this one called Texts from Mum…”
She is baffled when people ask for pictures with her outside fashion shows. “I can’t get my head around that. I don’t know if that will ever not be weird, someone saying, ‘Sam, can I have a photo with you?’ I just smile - what else can you do?”
Like it or not, though, she’s an influencer. The model, from Doncaster, was spotted at the Clothes Show in Birmingham aged 13, was working at 14, and has starred in campaigns for Zara, Tod’s, Chanel Watches and DKNY. In her breakout season in AW13 she walked in 63 shows, and has been on catwalks for Prada, Céline, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. She was nominated for Model of the Year at the 2014 British Fashion Awards.
Her latest role is as the face of Jaeger’s AW16 collection. The British brand is repositioning itself - and Rollinson approves. “It’s cooler and younger. The coats are things I’d definitely wear,” she says, loyally. Jaeger likely hopes to appeal to déshabillé, lissom millennials such as Rollinson and her young model set, which includes “best friend” Charlotte Wiggins, Burberry model Matilda Lowther and Topshop’s Eve Delf. She gestures to Wiggins’s and Delf’s portraits on the wall at Select Models’ offices, where we meet (“There they are,” she says fondly).
There are manifest advantages to working with your mates. “When I went to LA for the Burberry show, that was really cool,” she says, “because I went with Charlotte and Matilda, so on the plane it was literally, ‘We’re going on holiday!’” She lives with Wiggins and Delf on the canal near King’s Cross. If they go out, it’s Soho (“Ten minutes from where we live”). they take the Tube out and an Uber home.
“We don’t have wild parties. A standard day is just sitting watching MasterChef together. It’s nice to live with two people who are in the same industry - if you come back after a long day moaning they’re not going to judge you and say, ‘Oh come on, that’s cushty, don’t be a dick’.”
Rollinson is not as stubbornly normal as she would insist. She says Karl Lagerfeld is “really cool actually. He’s a really nice guy - I really get on with him. He is [really involved]. When you do the fittings there are all these sketches of all the looks that are done by him. He’s the most involved of anyone, I think.”
Career highlights include shooting the Chanel Watch campaign (“I’m really chuffed I’ve done that more than once”) and the aforementioned Burberry show in LA. Though she says the most exciting part of it was meeting Leicester band Kasabian (“I was dying”).
What is the role of the model in 2016? Returning to Instagram, Rollinson worries about the pervasion of “influencers” on the fashion industry. She says she’s heard rumours about brands asking models to volunteer their Instagram follower count when they come into the studio for New York Fashion Week castings.
“It’s quite sad because when I started out I had 1,000 followers,” she says. “Obviously - I was 18 and had just finished my A-levels. How could I have 10,000 followers? So if that does happen it’s quite sad - you’d get no new models.”
She’s ambivalent about the “clean eating” movement that has much of fashion (and Instagram) in its thrall. “I’m not really into it,” she shrugs. “I’m not saying I’m shoving a McDonald’s into my face every day, but yeah I’m not into it. You’ve got to have a bit of joy in your life.” She works out with a personal trainer twice a week. “I was like: ‘I’ll get a personal trainer because then I’ll just go once or twice a week because it’s booked’.”
Rollinson is part of a generation that regularly complains it has been betrayed by its elders. What does she think about Brexit? “I felt more shocked than anything,” she says slowly. “I didn’t want to leave but I think we’ll have to get on with it. You can’t keep having referendums until you get what you want.”
She’s more comfortable and forthcoming about summer’s other big story, Pokémon Go: “It’s not as good as the Gameboy game,” she says. “But I’m now at the stage where you can battle. I got a Jigglypuff the other day and I texted all my mates. It’s not taking over my life but if I’m bored I’ll have a look. I think it’s good for nostalgia. For reliving your childhood.”
That’s Rollinson: calm, cool and very collected - unless she’s talking about Instagram.
Sam Rollinson talks Instagram, Karl Lagerfeld and Pokémon GOSam RollinsonInstagramKarl LagerfeldJaegerCharlotte WigginsBurberryTwitterBenicassimPradaEve DelfGameboyMatilda LowtherSam is the face of her generation. She talks Karl Lagerfeld and keeping it real