{blackbabes} Rihanna explains who Robyn is and why she liked Diana

This may be the most unusual admiring comment about the late Princess Diana ever: "She was gangsta with her clothes."

So says Rihanna, who looks more gamine than gangsta on the cover of Glamour this month, and inside talks about her fashion idols, her new fashion reality-TV show, why she prefers to be called Robyn, and how someday she wants kids — but not right now.

The interview was conducted on her home island of Barbados in the Caribbean, where her friends know her as Robyn.

"When people call me Robyn, my head just flies around because I feel like that person knows me," she says. "But Rihanna, that tends to be people's own (creation). Robyn is who I am. Rihanna —that's an idea of who I am."

Now 25, Rihanna is about to launch Styled to Rock, a fashion reality show scheduled to debut on Bravo on Oct. 25. Thus, the magazine cover. "I get excited by discovering new designers. I'm obsessed with being first with everything in fashion."

The icons on her best-dressed list are eclectic: "Oh my God, are you kidding me? Nicole Richie. She just pisses me off, she's so good," she says.

"But you know who is the best who ever did it? Princess Diana. She was like — she killed it. Every look was right. She was gangsta with her clothes. She had these crazy hats. She got oversize jackets. I loved everything she wore."

She's been obsessed with fashion since she was a kid, and for a touching reason.

"My love for fashion — let me say, my admiration for fashion — started with my mom," she says. "I used to watch her get dressed. She was around my age right now, and she was so fly. So fly. I remember not even knowing how to do that because I was such a tomboy."

Her mother taught her to take a fearless attitude. "I had to regain my fearlessness because it did go away for a little bit. My mother said something to me a few years ago: 'I've seen something in your eyes I've never seen before: fear.' She was like, 'No, this is not you.' I just got back to being OK with myself."

She wants children someday but is missing a crucial ingredient right now: "I look forward to the day when I'm gonna be a mom," she says. "But I'm nowhere close. I don't even have a potential baby daddy!"

The November issue is on newsstands nationally on Oct. 8.

ARTPOP - Lady Gaga