Coco Gauff is unstoppable. This year alone, the 21-year-old tennis star earned two Grand Slam championships, maintained her status as the highest paid female athlete for a third year in a row, and earned a coveted spot on Forbes’s “30 Under 30” list. She also became an ambassador for Miu Miu Beauty’s new fragrance, Miutine.
Alongside model Paloma Elsesser and actor and director Chloë Sevigny, Gauff joins the campaign championing a rebellious desire to play by one's own rules. The partnership is a fitting next step for Gauff, who wore the New Balance x Miu Miu collab at several tournaments this year.
In Gauff’s social media campaign for Miutine, she defines the Miu Miu-coined term as “the space between the steps, the quiet before the serve, the knowing I don’t have to move to have momentum.” She tells Teen Vogue this was inspired by the moment just after the umpire says “play” and the crowd goes quiet. “That’s where you find yourself and the nerves go away in that moment, and it just feels like you’re on a quiet court in the backyard and not in a stadium full of people,” she says.
Below, we caught up with Gauff to talk about the campaign, the scents that help her feel energized, and more.
Coco Gauff: It’s an effortlessly confident-type scent. I feel like once you spray it on, you feel it and then it settles down into something warmer with a little bit of sweetness in it, but it’s not overbearing, which is how I prefer my scent. Obviously, no one naturally smells like that, but I feel like there’s some scents that just feel effortless, and I think that’s what Miutine gives.
CG: Honestly, I try to match my fragrances to my outfits. And then once I finally got the chance to smell Miutine, it's kind of been my everyday scent just because it feels like it's coming out of your skin. Also, when I'm on court, I don't like to smell anything too heavy. There's not many scents that mix well with sweat, so I'll just spray a little tiny bit of Miutine before I go on court, even though no one's smelling me, but you smell yourself.
CG: I like vanilla scented things, so usually I have vanilla-scented clear lip gloss before I go on the court and that kind of just settles me down. And honestly, this is not fragrance related, but food. I like to eat a big meal before I play, so the smell of food kind of calms me down.
CG: After a long day, I usually like to light candles. I’ve been into cinnamon-scented things with the holidays coming up. I’m in the middle of decorating my house, which is really how I unwind at the end of the day: decorating and cleaning.
CG: I definitely think it's evolved a lot. When I was younger, I used to follow all the YouTube tutorials and do [different trends], but now I've become more comfortable with my skin. I used to put on makeup to kind of cover those features [I didn’t like], and now I feel like I put it on to emphasize what I already love about myself. I think it's just made me more confident in who I am and feel more confident when I'm stepping out.
CG: There were roll on stick perfumes that look like candy, and I would put those on as a kid. For me, my favorite compliment is when someone says that I smell good, so I’m one of those people whenever the bottle says one or two squirts, I don’t listen to that. I like to douse myself in it.
CG: My beauty ritual is always skin care routine in the morning, especially if I'm playing a big match because I feel like it's the last thing I do before I leave the hotel to go warm up. So skin care routine before and then always, always after practice or a game, I immediately find a sink or something to wipe my face. I find when I sweat and you keep the sweat on your skin for too long, my skin can get irritated.
CG: On the court, definitely the way I dress and the way that I appear. I feel like being a woman in the sport, what I wear is important to me and makes me feel confident. Off the court, similar, my style. But, like I said, smelling good. Even if I don’t have a cute outfit, I like when people walk past me and be like "What do you have on?”
CG: In the past, I would try to fit into whatever box people were trying to put me in. You’re growing up in this world and especially in my sport, being a woman of color, just trying to fit in some sort of box, and as I've grown and matured, I've realized I just have to be myself and people appreciate that. And I don't think I would be in a Miu Miu campaign, something that I always dreamed of if I wasn't myself, so I really love that I've been on this internal process of trying to be myself and then being able to be in a campaign that kind of champions that is really cool and really coincidental timing [with] the season I'm in right now.
CG: The biggest advice that I would give them is: You know your own limits. Don't let other people put your limitations on you. You'll find that oftentimes they limit you or dumb you down to a level that you don't deserve to be at. I always tell people to keep pushing yourself and pushing your own limits. Don't worry about what other limitations people try to put on you, because usually more than not, they're wrong.
CG: The biggest thing that I hope people take away from this campaign is literally what it's about: Being authentically yourself. I think sometimes people can view high fashion or high beauty as something that is only dedicated for a certain group of people, but what I love about Miu Miu is they champion the fact that this is for everyone and you can make Miutine unique to you, and that’s what I love. Miutine doesn’t make you unique, you make Miutine unique.
