1.THE TEA PALACE, LONDON W11.
It's late September 2005, and it's Miller time, only I'm drinking sencha and waiting for Sienna. Around me are tranquil, hip, and very bourgeois tea connoisseurs, a strangely decadent spectacle that makes me think I am witnessing the final, filigreed twist in the rise and fall of Notting Hill. Kate Moss, the physical incarnation of the neighborhood's glamour and dark side, is in exile after the cocaine-norting fiasco, which itself followed the swinging allegations/revelations of Pearl Lowe, a musician and lace-curtain-maker (her handiwork is de rigueur in any self-respecting rock chick's window), involving Lowe's boyfriend (Supergrass's Danny Coffey) and Jude Law and the latter's then-wife, Sadie Frost. It's a tarnished, telling time, I'm thinking; and then Sienna enters and announces, from across the room, "Just got to go for a wee!," and I'm immediately struck by her freshness and confidence, even though she herself is a recent veteran of tabloid scrutiny. Let's say it now and be done with it: There was the engagement, there was the nanny, and there was the aftermath. Sienna, who's 23, says, "We're not the first couple to deal with infidelity in a relationship. Lots of couples go through it. He's my best friend. I'm his best friend. I, personally, can't cut someone out of my life, even if he's hurt me. It's a process."

We talk about various things. Sienna is excited about prepping for her role as Edie Sedgwick in George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl. She's been reading the books and watching the films, and she can't wait to meet the actual survivors of the Warhol gang in New York. She's also going to chop off her hair; she hasn't had a short do since she was fourteen and inspired by Winona Ryder. "I looked like a small boy." (She wore a wig for Casanova and doesn't want to do that again.)

We drink up and jump into the black car waiting outside. There is another car waiting, but it contains paparazzi, and we don't jump into that one.

"Just Like a Woman" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the January 2006 issue of Vogue.

Click here for the full article.

Get more articles like this delivered to your door each month! Click here to subscribe today.