Irina Lazareanu’s Closet

“I'm always extremely open and that’s a double edged sword. I never really wore a mask. I wear my heart on my sleeve." Irina Lazareanu









Occupation: model, songwriter and musician

With big eyes that melt you with their sincerity and were once the object of childhood ridicule until she grew into them, Irina admits, “I have recently learned that I am an extremely fragile person, I feel a lot…I am always open and I never wear a mask.” Irina’s family has gone through too much to not know what is important in life, especially when it comes to telling the truth. When she was four years old, she and her parents were political refugees from Romania who knew firsthand what it was like to fear for your life based on your beliefs. As a result, Irina feels an obligation to be outspoken when necessary about anything, including the pitfalls of modeling, despite consequences that could affect her prominence as a supermodel (she was once booked for ninety runway shows in one season).

This same bravery and sense of uninhibited fervor goes for everything Irina does. She turned her passion for beat poetry and rhythmic literature into songs with the help of Pete Doherty when she collaborated with the Libertines at fourteen years old and today, among many other projects, she is designing her own line of clothes based on what she feels is a need for the quintessential women’s three-piece suit and she is jamming on stage with Sean Lennon and others with her new endeavor, Operation Juliet. Irina refers to her successes as “improvising,” but her talent and honesty are real and never more apparent than in her iconic sense of style. Her dad, who sometimes still speaks in whispers, an affectation left over from his past, had a resounding impact on Irina when he told her to be herself because everyone else is already taken. When you see her sprawled on a daybed in a couture hippie dress, extraordinary sheepskin bohemian coat and legit Mongolian boots, you get what a tasteful, cultured and confident free-spirit she is.