Tracee Ellis Ross Marie Claire Tracee Ellis Ross

PHOTOGRAPHER: ANDREW YEE STYLIST: MARCO ANTONIO

“Wow,” Venus Williams says, when I remind her of our first encounter – her family coincidentally renting a house almost next door to my own. It was especially memorable because my mum had baked a cake and walked it up to the Williams’ house to congratulate them on their performances. “We’re practically family,” she laughs, before adding: “Wimbledon is very special for me. My dad had said, ‘Pick a tournament you want to win before any other.’ Wimbledon is the pinnacle of tennis; it’s one of the hardest sporting tickets to get, so I picked Wimbledon. And by the time I got there, me and Dad kind of had a pact, like, here’s the tournament you’re going to win.”

racee Ellis Ross radiates a kind of light that’s hard to define. It’s warm, alive and utterly disarming. She arrives on Zoom four minutes past our meeting time profusely apologising, as though I’d been waiting an hour. Her computer, she says, staged a protest after being neglected for weeks. I tease her for not needing to be glued to a screen like the rest of us by venture of her acting career, but she quickly quips that she is also a CEO, her voice calm and assertive – a reminder that she's more than the box people may put her in. We instantly bond and Ellis Ross, whose birth name is Tracee Joy Silberstein, gleefully explains how her mother – the legendary singer Diana Ross – claimed she came out of the womb joyful, so her name made sense. I tell her I feel the same, as my name means ‘smile’ in Arabic. “Well, which came first – the chicken or the egg?” she laughs. Joy, it seems, is her most natural state. Ellis Ross softens when I ask what quieter lessons she absorbed early on that shaped her admirable level of confidence. “I started wearing glasses at a very young age,” she says. “In first grade, my teacher didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t see the blackboard. So, from the age of six, I had this sense of how to express myself in a way that is about being understood”.

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Stylish, self-assured and blazing a trail for Black women in both business and Hollywood, Tracee Ellis Ross is unapologetically living life on her own terms. Here, the Golden Globe-winning Black-ish actor and entrepreneur talks to Basma Khalifa about solo adventures, sisterhood and striving for pure, unadulterated agency

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EDITOR IN CHIEF: ANDREA THOMPSON EDITOR: SUNIL MAKAN WORDS: BASMA KHALIFA CREATIVE DIRECTOR: LILY RUSSO-BAH SENIOR ART EDITOR: ANA OSPINA CHIEF SUB EDITOR: NICOLA MOYNE STYLIST: MARCO ANTONIO MAKE-UP ARTIST: LISA STOREY HAIR STYLIST: JAMES CATALANO VIDEOGRAPHER: REBECCA MUNROE SOCIAL: DIONNE BRIGHTON, MAGGIE JOYNER PRODUCER: CLARE LAZARO DIGITAL OPERATOR: GEORGIA FAYE WILLIAMS ASSISTANTS: EMMA SEERY (STYLING); WILBERT LATI, BENEDICT MOORE (PHOTOGRAPHY) With thanks to The Peninsula London

“[Confidence] is something society seems to chase, but it’s not how I see myself. I think my identity is very anchored in a sense of wholeness”

Eventually, Ellis Ross left the modelling world behind, following her instinct toward something more aligned with who she wanted to become. She landed a job as a stylist and fashion editor at Mirabella magazine, working alongside her now-best friend Samira Nasr, who would go on to become Harper’s Bazaar’s first Black female Editor-in-Chief. But something still felt off. “I love this. I love clothes,” she remembers thinking, “but it’s not enough for me as a career… I will keep loving clothes but I need to find something else.” And with that began years of acting auditions. First in New York, then eventually Los Angeles. Like so many, she did the gruelling audition circuit. But despite her famous lineage and a growing star-studded circle, her early days in the industry were anything but easy. “I was a failure at the beginning of my career,” she says plainly. “I couldn’t get hired. I would audition and audition. I got dropped by an agent who said, ‘Here’s the thing about you, Tracee: you’re so interesting, you’ve got style… but when you go into a room, you just don’t pop’.” We giggle in horror over the years of therapy it must have taken to unravel that attack on her being. Then Ellis Ross leans into the vulnerability of it: “The worst thing about those comments is they lodge like these worms in your mind for years to come. I took it personally. It really wounded me and, then, over time, it empowered me. What I did was ask myself, ‘Do I think I pop? What if I’m not popping? What is it that’s making me not pop? How am I afraid to show the Tracee that exists?’”

Tracee Ellis Ross on style, sisterhood and solo adventures

She grabs her phone and asks me if I can see her screensaver, a childhood photo of little Tracee Joy in glasses – the same image she sees every time she unlocks her phone. “There was a vulnerability there, because I couldn’t see,” she reflects. “It’s very much part of my soft centre.” She pauses, trying to recall a favourite quote: “Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life,” she recites. I later find out these words form part of Alcoholics Anonymous’s Third Step Prayer – but she’s made it her own. “My vulnerabilities have allowed me to connect with the vulnerabilities of others,” she says softly. Then, in true Ellis Ross fashion, she swings back to joy. “I always joke that I have these big eyes that don’t work,” she laughs. Yet, beyond the electric fashion, it feels like the first glimpse into the actor’s sacred, private core; a place she holds close for the people she loves most. From the outside, Ellis Ross is the OG of self-possession: a woman who knows who she is. But when I bring up self-confidence she gently resists. “I don’t know that I’ve ever used that word,” she says. “It’s something society seems to chase, but it’s not how I see myself. I think my identity is very anchored in a sense of wholeness…” she begins, her thoughts moving faster than her words. I watch as her face connects to another memory: “I remember when I started modelling, so I loved fashion from a young age. I remember going in my mom’s closet. I would go with her to fittings and there was a sense of agency and power that lived in fashion that I really identified with. That idea really stuck with me,” she says.

The

Pattern was 10 years in the making and Ellis Ross doesn’t sugarcoat the struggle. “When I received a no, it taught me to ask myself a series of questions,” she says. “Do I agree with the no? Did I express my idea effectively? Had I fully thought it through? Or… maybe I did agree and it was time to let that idea go.” She pauses, then adds: “I allow myself to feel the hit. I’m porous. I feel things deeply. But when I’m ready without shame, I ask myself those questions. That’s what helps me get clearer. That’s what keeps me moving toward the goal.” The conversation turns to style and she lights up. With more than 11 million Instagram followers and an internet presence built on a bold, joyous wardrobe, her love affair with fashion is a full-blown adventure. Where did it all start? “I feel like I came out of the womb like, ‘Where’s Barneys?’” she laughs, throwing her hands in the air. “I saw that the way you adorn yourself could express identity,” she continues. “Clothing can show people how you want to be seen. For a long time what I wore was armour and sometimes it still is. I don’t actually think it’s fashion I love – it’s style.” Scroll through her Instagram feed and it’s clear Ellis Ross dresses for her mood, which, more often than not, is fabulously chic and fun – a hard tightrope to master for even the fashion elites. She references creative directors more than designers as her inspirations: “Matthieu Blazy, Pieter Mulier at Alaïa, Marc Jacobs… we came up in the same generation, so there’s a real affinity in our references. We went to the Met Ball together this year and had so much fun.”

EDITOR IN CHIEF: ANDREA THOMPSON EDITOR: SUNIL MAKAN WORDS: BASMA KHALIFA CREATIVE DIRECTOR: LILY RUSSO-BAH SENIOR ART EDITOR: ANA OSPINA CHIEF SUB EDITOR: NICOLA MOYNE MAKE-UP ARTIST: LISA STOREY HAIR STYLIST: JAMES CATALANO VIDEOGRAPHER: REBECCA MUNROE SOCIAL: DIONNE BRIGHTON, MAGGIE JOYNER PRODUCER: CLARE LAZARO DIGITAL OPERATOR: GEORGIA FAYE WILLIAMS ASSISTANTS: EMMA SEERY (STYLING); WILBERT LATI, BENEDICT MOORE (PHOTOGRAPHY) With thanks to The Peninsula London

FASHION: Dress, Marni. Bracelet, Bulgari

OPENING IMAGE FASHION: Dress and cape, both Marine Serre. Boots, Jimmy Choo. Necklace, Graff.

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FASHION: Whole look, Balenciaga

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FASHION: Dress, Issey Miyake. Shoes, Jimmy Choo

“I remember going in my mom’s closet. I would go with her to fittings and there was a sense of agency and power that lived in fashion that I really identified with. That idea really stuck with me”

ELLIS

ROSS

“The worst thing about those comments is they lodge like these worms in your mind for years to come. I took it personally. It really wounded me and, then, over time, it empowered me”

It’s clear that she went on to prove her naysayers wrong. She cites Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett as comedic north stars guiding her early years, before she eventually secured the role of Joan Carol Clayton in Girlfriends. “When Girlfriends ended up happening, I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. I became a woman during those eight years. I became a seasoned actress. I learned the rhythm of television. I learned the difference between being naturally funny and being directable,” she says. Acting, it turns out, was Ellis Ross’s true calling; the space where she found her footing. She played Clayton for 173 episodes but says Hollywood never quite accepted [the series]. “We were in this bubble, celebrated and received so graciously and incredibly by the Black community. But the larger community of Hollywood was not aware of us. We were not on that radar.” After eight years on Girlfriends, which is now attracting new audiences via Netflix, Ellis Ross appeared in Reed Between the Lines alongside the late Malcolm-Jamal Warner. But it was Black-ish, released in 2014, that catapulted her into another stratosphere. When I ask if her visibility changed after Black-ish aired, she throws her hands up, almost in disbelief.

“It was like a skyrocketed difference,” she says. “All of a sudden it was Emmys, talk shows, magazine covers, things I never had access to before. My platform to use my voice expanded and it all led to a very different, more public identity.” The show was a cultural juggernaut. It won five Emmy nominations and earned Ellis Ross a Golden Globe, marking the first time in 30 years that a Black actress had been nominated in the lead comedy category. Never one to stay in a single lane, though, Ellis Ross expanded her creative empire in 2019 and launched Pattern – a haircare line designed specifically for curly, coily and tight-textured hair. As founder and CEO, she stepped into new territory, but with the same sense of clarity and purpose that has defined her career. I ask what becoming a CEO has taught her? “I guess I would use confidence here,” she says. “There was no question in my mind that it was needed. There wasn’t a brand I saw that catered to the full range of what I, and so many others, were looking for. Not just in terms of product effectiveness, but having it all in one line.” Her passion intensifies as she talks about the deeper intention behind the brand: “Marketing is often based on this idea that something is wrong with you and we need to shame you into buying a solution. I completely disagree. I feel like I make the best purchases when I already feel good about myself.”

“When Girlfriends ended up happening, I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. I became a woman during those eight years”

“Oprah [Winfrey] once said I was the poster child for singledom. I disagree with that. If I had my choice, I’d want to be the poster child for: Can you live life on your own terms? Can you find your own joy and be responsible for your own happiness?”

FASHION: Coat, Alaïa

As a jobbing actress in Hollywood, she found joy in thrifting, too. She lights up reminiscing over a pair of salmon cords from Levi’s she once owned, adding: “I used to comb vintage stores wherever I went – San Francisco, Miami, everywhere. That was how I built my wardrobe.” Now, things look different. “I don’t really buy vintage anymore,” she admits. “I finally have the money to buy the pieces I used to try to emulate.” She doesn’t take this privilege for granted. “My mom told me early on that if you spend a lot of money on clothes, you have to take care of them,” she says. “And I do. I hand-wash my things. I even make hand-washing videos. I cherish my treasures. I archive them because I buy really beautiful pieces.” And she’s not kidding – from Jacquemus to Loewe to Marni to Dries Van Noten, Ellis Ross’s curation of luxury labels is highly covetable. “But when I travel – like, solo travel – those are all my clothes. I don’t use a stylist. Everything is personal,” she says. It’s a point that segues nicely into her latest project, Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross, now streaming on Roku. Shot largely on her personal phone and with a nimble team around her, the series feels like an intimate travel diary – part inner monologue, part visual postcard, cut with a playful, social-media-friendly edit that keeps you engaged. But Ellis Ross hopes viewers will understand the deeper takeaway, too. “Oprah [Winfrey] once said I was the poster child for singledom,” she tells me. “I disagree with that. If I had my choice, I’d want to be the poster child for: Can you live life on your own terms? Can you find your own joy and be responsible for your own happiness?”

FASHION: Blazer, shirt and skirt, all COMME DES GARÇONS. Shoes, Jimmy Choo

“I don’t know that [friends] challenge me – I think they hold me. I think they dream bigger than I dream sometimes. And sometimes I dream bigger for them, too”

FASHION: Dress and shoes, both Marc Jacobs

She’s quick to clarify that “this show isn’t a guide on how to travel solo, nor am I trying to be the next Anthony Bourdain. The show really lives somewhere between travel and lifestyle,” she says. “It’s about asking: ‘Can you be yourself, by yourself, out in the world?’” I let her know that I adored a specific scene in Morocco, where she opts for a night in with fries and taking out her braids over a night on the cobbled streets. A rare glimpse into the process of Afro hair maintenance that isn’t often seen on screen. The feedback lands well, and she signals to her agent, who is also on the Zoom call, to show the Morocco episode at an upcoming event. While her solo adventures bring her joy, I notice her tone softens when the topic turns to sisterhood. “I’ve learned how to be a friend from my friends; by being friended,” she says, her gaze drifting inwards. “I’ve had the same best friends since my early twenties, and then I have some new ones from the past 20 years.”

“My face is ageing and I love it. I don’t know that I loved my face growing up, but I really love my face now”

FASHION: Sweater and trousers, both Acne Studios. Shoes, Jimmy Choo

Indeed, style became a throughline in her life. “I still have all my old issues of Vogue, Elle, French Vogue – all of them from the ’80s.” She was painfully shy, she says, though few would believe it now. “People laugh when I say I was shy because I had this big personality, but that bigness was rooted in shyness. My mom said that, looking back, modelling is when I started to gain a sense of confidence in who I [am]; when I started to realise my full self.” Ellis Ross began modelling shortly after her 18th birthday, walking the Thierry Mugler show in 1991 alongside her mother. The following year, she was asked to walk solo. “They wanted me to wear this bustier with dollar signs on it,” she recalls, “and this sort of… crocheted rhinestone cape. I was supposed to get to the end of the runway, open the cape and reveal the dollar signs. I was really worried about showing my breasts.” We both grit our teeth at each other as she continues the story and explains how she was unsure of what to do. She turned to a friend for guidance – the then-rising star Naomi Campbell. “I said, ‘I’m nervous about this. I don’t know if it feels right.’ And she said, ‘Are you a model? If you want to be a model, you show up for the designer. If you don’t, then you make choices’.” The moment stuck. “It was a really good lesson because I didn’t know I had agency yet. That’s when I started learning how to say no and that it didn’t matter what other people thought. What mattered was what felt right for me.”

FASHION: DRESS, MARNI. BRACELET, BULGARI

She grabs her phone and asks me if I can see her screensaver, a childhood photo of little Tracee Joy in glasses – the same image she sees every time she unlocks her phone. “There was a vulnerability there, because I couldn’t see,” she reflects. “It’s very much part of my soft centre.” She pauses, trying to recall a favourite quote: “Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life,” she recites. I later find out these words form part of Alcoholic Anonymous’s Third Step Prayer – but she’s made it her own. “My vulnerabilities have allowed me to connect with the vulnerabilities of others,” she says softly. Then, in true Ellis Ross fashion, she swings back to joy. “I always joke that I have these big eyes that don’t work,” she laughs. Yet, beyond the electric fashion, it feels like the first glimpse into the actor’s sacred, private core; a place she holds close for the people she loves most. From the outside, Ellis Ross is the OG of self-possession: a woman who knows who she is. But when I bring up self-confidence she gently resists. “I don’t know that I’ve ever used that word,” she says. “It’s something society seems to chase, but it’s not how I see myself. I think my identity is very anchored in a sense of wholeness…” she begins, her thoughts moving faster than her words. I watch as her face connects to another memory: “I remember when I started modelling, so I loved fashion from a young age. I remember going in my mom’s closet. I would go with her to fittings and there was a sense of agency and power that lived in fashion that I really identified with. That idea really stuck with me,” she says.

FASHION: DRESS, ISSEY MIYAKE. SHOES, JIMMY CHOO

“The worst thing about those comments is they lodge like these worms in your mind for years to come. I took it personally. It really wounded me and, then, over time, it empowered me”

I ask her how they challenge her and she says: “I don’t know that they challenge me – I think they hold me. I think they dream bigger than I dream sometimes. And sometimes I dream bigger for them, too.” - As our conversation winds down, I ask which parts of herself she’s grown to love the most. She pauses, before sharing: “Vulnerability, curiosity, teachability and faith.” I ask her for one more to round it to five and, in true Ellis Ross charm, she says: “My face. My face is ageing and I love it. I don’t know that I loved my face growing up, but I really love my face now.” And just like that we sign off with a reminder that you can continue to grow and dream and love all the parts of yourself that you may not have loved before. Tracee Ellis Ross: the perfect symbol of what it is to be a woman today; a woman who knows herself and loves herself, while still being open to whatever path life leads her on.

FASHION: BLAZER, SHIRT AND SKIRT, ALL COMMES DES GARÇONS. SHOES, JIMMY CHOO

It’s clear that she went on to prove her naysayers wrong. She cites Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett as comedic north stars guiding her early years, before she eventually secured the role of Joan Carol Clayton in Girlfriends. “When Girlfriends ended up happening, I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. I became a woman during those eight years. I became a seasoned actress. I learned the rhythm of television. I learned the difference between being naturally funny and being directable,” she says. Acting, it turns out, was Ellis Ross’s true calling; the space where she found her footing. She played Clayton for 173 episodes but says Hollywood never quite accepted [the series]. “We were in this bubble celebrated and received so graciously and incredibly by the Black community. But the larger community of Hollywood was not aware of us. We were not on that radar.” After eight years on Girlfriends, which is now attracting new audiences via Netflix, Ellis Ross appeared in Reed Between the Lines alongside the late Malcolm-Jamal Warner. But it was Black-ish, released in 2014, that catapulted her into another stratosphere. When I ask if her visibility changed after Black-ish aired, she throws her hands up, almost in disbelief.

“When Girlfriends ended up happening, I truly thought I had died and gone to heaven. I became a woman during those eight years”

FASHION: DRESS, MARNI. BRACELET, BULGARI

Pattern was 10 years in the making and Ellis Ross doesn’t sugarcoat the struggle. “When I received a no, it taught me to ask myself a series of questions,” she says. “Do I agree with the no? Did I express my idea effectively? Had I fully thought it through? Or… maybe I did agree and it was time to let that idea go.” She pauses, then adds: “I allow myself to feel the hit. I’m porous. I feel things deeply. But when I’m ready without shame, I ask myself those questions. That’s what helps me get clearer. That’s what keeps me moving toward the goal.” The conversation turns to style and she lights up. With more than 11 million Instagram followers and an internet presence built on a bold, joyous wardrobe, her love affair with fashion is a full-blown adventure. Where did it all start? “I feel like I came out of the womb like, ‘Where’s Barneys?’” she laughs, throwing her hands in the air. “I saw that the way you adorn yourself could express identity,” she continues. “Clothing can show people how you want to be seen. For a long time what I wore was armour and sometimes it still is. I don’t actually think it’s fashion I love – it’s style.” Scroll through her Instagram feed and it’s clear Ellis Ross dresses for her mood, which, more often than not, is fabulously chic and fun – a hard tightrope to master for even the fashion elites. | She references creative directors more than designers as her inspirations: “Matthieu Blazy, Pieter Mulier at Alaïa, Marc Jacobs… we came up in the same generation, so there’s a real affinity in our references. We went to the Met Ball together this year and had so much fun.”

FASHION: DRESS AND SHOES, BOTH MARC JACOBS

“I don’t know that [friends] challenge me – I think they hold me. I think they dream bigger than I dream sometimes. And sometimes I dream bigger for them, too”

FASHION: DRESS, MARNI. BRACELET, BULGARI

“My face is ageing and I love it. I don’t know that I loved my face growing up, but I really love my face now”

OPENING IMAGE FASHION: DRESS AND CAPE, BOTH MARINE SERRE. BOOTS, JIMMY CHOO. NECKLACE, GRAFF.

FASHION: DRESS, MARNI. BRACELET, BULGARI

FASHION: Dress, Marni. Bracelet, Bulgari