Bruning Bush
By Bridget Foley
style.com

The good. The bad. The beautiful—sounds like high school. It also sounds like the next generation of the American political dynasty du jour, whose various members have grabbed more headlines during the still-young presidency of George W. Bush than Chelsea did through the tumultuous eight years of Papa Clinton's run.

As a White House schoolgirl, Chelsea often seemed like the only grown-up in residence. Conversely, in family makeup if not in ideology, the Bushes more closely resemble the Kennedys, with a network of teen and young-adult cousins who act like, well, teens and young adults. But while the Kennedys' male children drew most of the ink, both good and bad, today, the exploits of the Bush girls make for juicy reading. Sure, Jeb's son Gorgeous George of the Ultrabrite smile and Latin charm answered the call to action during his uncle's campaign, but for now he appears to have retreated into his law-school studies, leaving Jenna, Barbara, Noelle and Lauren as the clan's chief nonelected newsmakers. In an era in which one can achieve celebrity by birth or proclamation, these girls are destined to live under scrutiny for the next few years at least, their every move chronicled.

The four have made very different kinds of headlines, with Jenna and Barbara cited by police for that collegiate rite of passage, underage drinking, and Jeb Bush's daughter Noelle arrested on charges of prescription fraud. Only cousin Lauren, the eldest of Sharon and Neil Bush's three children, is getting the good-girl treatment from the press. Which is ironic since, unlike the First Twins, who even shied away from making rosy-cheeked campaign stops for Dad, she is actively seeking celebrity in that raciest of teenaged disciplines—modeling. Yet after three years in the business, Lauren has yet to display a yen for the fast lane that so often lures young models. "I have a normal life," she says. "I go away for a weekend. I do a shoot. I come back, which is the best part of my life, like, the normal everydayness. I've seen the evils without actually experiencing the evils. My mother has come with me, so it's not like I've been thrown to the world."

Lauren is now focused on two goals that seem diametrically opposed: her career and college. At a friend's suggestion, she fell into the former three years ago while visiting New York, and maintains that she finds the opportunity to travel and meet new people more compelling than the notion of celebrity for its own sake. Now a high-school senior, she and her mother orchestrate her jobs to interfere as little as possible with the drudgery and joy of high school, no mean feat since they're operating from their base in Houston. "I have fun with modeling, but I won't do it full time, because I'm going to college next year," Lauren says. But potential clients, take note, this savvy girl offers a promising caveat: "Most of the colleges I looked at are up East, so I'll be a train ride away. Better than hopping on a plane from Texas."

Still, make no mistake: Her education remains Lauren's priority. She and her mother worked their W shoot into a last-look trek through the Eastern schools to which she's applied. Like millions of other high-school seniors, she awaits this month's arrival of notification letters and doesn't want to compromise her chances anywhere by naming her first choice. She notes a broad range of academic interests—art, photography, theater, languages, business—before settling on that most popular of freshman majors, undecided. "I don't know," she sighs. "I guess I'll have to see when I get there and sort things out."

With her fresh-scrubbed beauty, Lauren works the classic coed look to perfection. Although short by mannequin standards—5' 7"—she has the kind of strong bone structure the camera loves. Certainly that wholesomeness appealed to Tommy Hilfiger, who signed her to a contract for Tommy Jeans. The campaign, photographed by Carter Smith, breaks this month.

"Lauren is the quintessential all-American beauty and is really the perfect face for Tommy Jeans," Hilfiger says. "She is extremely intelligent, charming, full of energy and exudes a certain sophistication for someone her age." As for whether part of that appeal comes from her name, Hilfiger notes that "although her last name is certainly an asset in terms of consumer recognition, it is her all-American sensibility and youthful energy that were captivating to me."

Concerning her lineage, Lauren won't "lie and say it didn't help in getting started." But she stresses that she did her time in the kinds of anonymous jobs typical of a young model's start, in her case about two years of catalog work. It wasn't until her presentation at the Bal des Débutantes at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris in December 2000, done up fairy princess-style in a tiara and grand swirl of Dior couture fluff, that the fashion industry really took notice. After, if a few clients worked the American angle, who could blame them? In June, the British magazine Tatler ran a cover photo of Lauren wrapped in the flag with the headline, NEW AMERICAN ICON. And the Italian tire company Pirelli chose her for the cover of its famed calendar in 2002, the company said, "as a tribute to America after the September 11 attacks."

Still, Lauren wants to avoid exploitation of the family name. For the Hilfiger campaign, the designer's camp had hoped to use her name on billboards. When this comes up in conversation, the mediawise young woman poses a question—"Can I talk off the record?"—lest she sound like the proverbial diva-in-training. "I made sure the contract said that they couldn't, because I don't want it to be about me," she explains. "I want it to be about Tommy Hilfiger." Assured that rather than grand, she sounds intelligent beyond her years, she puts the thought back on the record with a girlish, "Okay. Say it then."

Even if her name has provided a launching pad—three years ago, Elite signed her to its Celebrities Division—Lauren stands in crowded company. Plenty of political progeny and relations have catapulted their positions into entertainment or media careers, or tried to, and not only recently. Long before Ron Reagan took to ballet on the Joffrey stage and his sister Patti Davis wrote a nasty autobiographical novel, Margaret Truman attempted a singing career while her father still occupied the White House. Years later, she developed into a successful mystery novelist. While many political scions favor the family business, others prefer to report on it: Maria Shriver and Chris Cuomo both became broadcasters, as did the postpirouette Reagan; John F. Kennedy Jr. launched George magazine after a stint as an assistant district attorney and a serious flirtation with theater. (In October 1999, Lauren was featured in George.)

Similarly, the media have always savored the antics of political kids, for better or worse. Thus, the current fascination with the Bush crew, with Lauren cast as the token good girl. But don't think she revels in that role. Instead, she views the twins' recent experiences as a cautionary tale, not of the ramifications of bad behavior, but of the downside of life in the public eye. "Obviously, I've seen what the press has done to my cousins," she says. "I would never let that rule my life, but I'm not the kind of person to rebel or do things … I don't know. I don't let [the potential for bad press] dictate who I am, but I keep that in mind. How can you not?

"I think most people realize that [Barbara and Jenna] are college kids, and to make such a big deal out of it is a bit ridiculous," she continues. "At least now, [the press] has stopped."

While today's politicians cry that their children face unprecedented media scrutiny, that simply isn't true. If anything, with the notion of family-as-campaign prop seemingly on the wane, the press may be more controlled than ever in its coverage of nonelected progeny. Perhaps the White House's most amusingly spirited daughter occupied the spot some 100 years ago. Alice Roosevelt delighted the press with her antics—smoking in public, riding in fast cars. Franklin Roosevelt's eldest son, James, faced staunch criticism when he tried to sign on as a next-generation adviser à la Karenna Gore Schiff, while years later, a moment of public abandon earned Lyndon Johnson's younger daughter the nickname Watusi Luci. And while still a child, Amy Carter generated reams of copy by engaging in appalling public behavior—she read books at state dinners. Everyone's favorite White House kids, John and Caroline Kennedy, won only raves—it's tough to beat up on the preschool set—but years later, tabloid headlines taunted the hunk flunks following John's second stab at the New York bar exam. Over the years the press pursued details of his romantic life relentlessly, while also monitoring the bad and worse behavior of countless Kennedy cousins.

Nor is the fascination limited to Americans; just recall the much-chronicled exploits of Princesses Caroline and Stephanie. Now, all media eyes are on Caroline's knockout daughter Charlotte. And, of course, the fascination with the young British princes will likely fill gossip pages for decades to come. While revelations of drug use finally garnered Harry his moment in the glare, most of the frenzy swirls around the handsome heir, William.

Yes, including those rumors of a torrid e-mail romance between Wills and our girl Lauren Bush. Never happened, she insists. Yet she seems to take such inaccuracies in stride. But then, despite the girlish wiles, the apparent shyness and the retention of certain teenage conventions such as overuse of the words "awesome" and the more egregious "like," this is a smart young woman who has observed the reality of press scrutiny up close since she slept through her grandfather's inauguration at the age of four.

Still, Lauren maintains that she had—and retains—plenty of room for normalcy. The aura of her grandfather George Bush's presidency didn't register with her "until after the fact, because I was eight when he left office. Like, he had an awesome house, you know, and my cousins and I had awesome trips to Camp David and Washington. It was just all like a good time for me."

That was until the Gulf War put the family under greater risk, and thus tightened security. For the first time, the little girl wondered if perhaps her life were different. "That was kind of scary. You got the sense as a little kid that you might be at risk now, and then you're like, 'Why are we at risk? It's because my grandfather is in charge of all of this.' You can't really realize the magnitude of a job like that when you are eight."

Nor do you care that other people make such a fuss over your grandparents. "We just played and raised havoc," Lauren recalls of her White House visits with the twins. "Our family has always been very down-to-earth, with a good sense of humor. No one thought, like, 'Oh, he's president now.' Because he's just like the same old Gampy. He's really sweet."

As for the elder Barbara—"Gammy"—"She's very strong. She's very smart. She's really sweet, too." It became a tradition for Barbara Bush to take her granddaughters on special trips—Lauren and her younger sister, Ashley, enjoyed an "awesome" adventure in Egypt and Kenya—while Gampy took "the guys to the Super Bowl. And you know, fun things like that."

But fun doesn't extend to talking politics in public. Although Lauren laughingly acknowledges her party affiliation—her generation of Bushes holds no Democrats of which she is aware—she has no intention of becoming a mouthpiece for young Republicans. "It's not what my job is about," she says. "I'm not out to make a political statement. I want to stand for something, but more by example."

On that front, like all models, Lauren will face some tough decisions as her career progresses. As her 18th birthday nears, she is bound to confront shifting expectations from an industry in which sexual suggestion and provocation are essential elements. So just how sexy is too sexy? "I wouldn't do something against my nature knowingly. It's not like me not to be modest," she says. "That's why I'm so happy with the Tommy Hilfiger work; it's not too provocative. I'm happy with that." As for her Versaced-up sensuality on the cover of this magazine, she says, "I think that's more an art form instead of an abuse."

Clearly, the issue of maturing as a model is one to which Lauren has already given considerable thought, and which she knows will demand ongoing consideration. Right now, she can only weigh each job carefully before accepting it. "If I feel uncomfortable, well, then I reevaluate the job," she says. "But it kind of works out. I mean, I would never want to do anything to hurt my family, but then again I would never want to do anything to hurt myself. And I think they go hand in hand."

"Burning Bush," by Bridget Foley, has been edited for STYLE.com; the complete article appears in the April 2002 issue of W.

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