Ruby Rose is one of those people that can simply do it all. She’s only 31 years old with credits as an actor, model, TV presenter and DJ to her name, and likely more to come. It’s hard to imagine that there’s any world that she can’t step into and immediately make an impact. It’s a unique skill to be so adaptable, but Ruby doesn’t believe that it’s anything special to her alone. “I don't really think that there’s anything that defines what makes somebody unique,” she says. “It’s just by living your authentic self and doing the things that make you feel comfortable and feel right that makes you your own person,” she adds.
For Rose, it’s not a conscious effort to push boundaries, and it seems to come naturally. “I don’t necessarily wake up with the intention every morning to defy convention,” she says. The multi-hyphenate rather believes that what makes us each so different is simply innate: “It just so happens I was born in a certain way that made me a crazy child – that made me very creative”. At the end of the day, all it comes down to is our eternal search to be true to ourselves. “I just know that some of the things–choices, outfits, tattoos, hairstyles–that I choose wouldn’t necessarily be somebody else’s natural fit, but I think it’s just me being authentic,” she says.
The inspiration to constantly develop that authenticity comes from everything around Rose. “I get inspired by life, by art, by music, by film, fashion sport, everything,” she says. But it’s seeing others win that drives her the most: “Watching other people succeed, you know, watching people live out their passions and their dreams and what they were put on this planet to do, I find incredibly inspiring”. Rose is a self-branded workaholic, and it shows in the success that she’s achieved so far. “I’ve always prided myself on my work ethic.”
Rose is cognisant of the need to constantly push herself too. “I hate doing it, but I love to hate doing it,” she says. She knows the importance for people to test their limits and move out of their comfort zone for growth alone. In fact, that comfort zone can often be a dangerous place to stay in too long. “It’s not a place that you can really thrive and grow and test yourself and work out how strong or courageous or different that you can be in this life,” Rose says.
It’s in perhaps her newest role, as an actor, that this belief becomes most essential. “It’s incredibly important to get outside your comfort zone, for different roles and to just challenge all the things that make you uncomfortable so that they actually end up being your comfort zone.” Rose relishes the opportunity to feel uncomfortable, because she knows that with time, the fear will eventually dissipate: “The things that I once thought were well and truly outside my comfort zone, I played in for long enough that they became second nature.”
Knowing this, Rose actively seeks out new opportunities to test her ability to deal with difficult situations. “It’s important to find new things that are challenging or not avoid the things that you so desperately want to avoid because it eventually creates a broader sense of understanding, a broader sense of the world,” she says. She believes that doing so creates more compassion towards others, and strength in yourself: “It allows you to become stronger when people throw criticism or anything your way, by being able to transform and know that you’re comfortable in different elements and different areas.” Rose adds that it’s a vital factor in ensuring you’re living up to your own potential. “You sort of become the best person that you can,” she says.
“The things that I once thought were well and truly outside my comfort zone, I played in for long enough that they became second nature.”
This kind of philosophy has to come from somewhere, though. Rose thinks that her willingness to be different, and to go beyond the ordinary was established early in her life. In high school, she’d promise to herself that she wouldn’t be thrown off by what anyone else thought. “I would make it a definitive rule that I wouldn’t let other people dictate how I should live my life,” she says. Regardless of what your belief system is, Rose is firm on the fact that we’re all here with our own purpose, and our own unique skill set. She established the rule that regardless of what the people that she wanted to like her or that she admired thought, she wouldn’t bend to their whims.
Whether it was a call to be more girly, or to change herself to be more likeable, Rose wasn’t having it. “I realised that that was never going to feel right, and I was going to end up miserable having people that liked me that clearly didn’t like me for who I was anyway,” she says. It was that rule that she feels is one of the best things that happened to her: “It was one of the most freeing things that I could have done because we’re all here and we’re all unique and there’s only one of us.”
Living by her own set of rules and being so unique in everything that she does, it’s a natural fit that she’d be such a big fan of Nike’s Air Max brand. “I love Nike Air,” she says. “I think of both fashion and comfort.” Rose calls Nike an institution, especially since she’s been wearing their sneakers for so long, and says they’re a staple in her wardrobe – it makes their latest drop the VaporMax a must-cop for her. “They’re just something that goes with everything, you can literally wear them with a dress, which I do quite often when I’m uncomfortable,” she says. “I look at the heels, and I’m like, ‘yeah, I’m gonna go with the sneakers’.”
Rose says that Air Max feel natural to wear, and it allows her to switch between being all dolled-out to what she calls “tomboy” vibes. Her Air Max add touches of the athletic, and flourishes of colour to her fits that make her feel sexy. “I love that kind of swag that comes with wearing them,” she says. For someone that’s a champion of the unique, the way that she describes how her Air Max make her feel is naturally, inimitable: “I feel like the Queen of England; does anybody else feel like the Queen of England when they wear Air Max?” she says.
Complex have partnered with Nike to introduce the Revolutionairs who are defying convention in their chosen field. Don’t miss your chance to get the Nike Air VaporMax the moment it drops.
