“When I first moved in, I was staying here on a mattress for about six months. I didn’t really want to do anything to it. I just liked the way it felt. . . there was nothing to really hold onto.” Would you ever guess that these were the words of Zayn Malik, singer, heartthrob, and current Vogue cover star? We certainly would not have, at least until now. Sounding off on everything from fashion to fame to his current living situation, Zayn gave Vogue a look inside his home studio on a recent afternoon.

“The studio is kind of like what I always envisioned my bedroom to be like as a child, but couldn’t quite ever afford,” Zayn says. A cursory glance around quickly reveals that the space is indeed brimming with possessions that a younger Zayn would likely have approved of. Supreme stickers are seen repeatedly, while a black and yellow speaker set is layered with sticker depictions of everyone from Mario to Bart Simpson. In another corner, a figurine of Toy Story’s Slinky Dog can be glimpsed.

Nearby, a collage that started off small now takes up an entire wall. (“What I initially thought was, I’m going to put some posters in frames, I’m going to paint them. . . . I never ended up doing that,” Zayn admits.) And not far from there, a coffee table has been creatively filled with Zayn’s personal comic book collection. “They were in a safe somewhere,” Zayn explains. “They had cobwebs and stuff on them. We just decided to take them out and put them in the coffee table.”

A creative use of an almost forgotten set of possessions. But as Zayn says of all the items here, they are “little bits of me.”

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