The day before Donatella Versace would reunite four of the original supermodels on her September runway, I am at the Baglioni in Milan having lunch with another member of that exclusive club. Amber Valletta, of course, already walked Versace last season. The week after, in March, she led an ensemble cast of models from the 1990s down Dries Van Noten’s catwalk to mark his 100th show, fronting a new wave in fashion where models are once again encouraged to be more than just mannequins. “I wouldn’t normally be running around with a bunch of 20 year olds trying to get into every fashion show, but everything I did last season was appropriate,” Valletta asserts. At 43, age-appropriate is hardly something she needs to be concerned about. Fair-skinned, blonde and built like a racehorse, she somehow fuses grace, sophistication and sex appeal in one all-American package, dressed head-to-toe in sparkly Isabel Marant, whose show she also walked last season. “You can wear glitter in Milan in the day,” as she points out. When Valletta returned to modelling a few years ago following a break to focus on her acting career, you couldn’t call it a comeback. Much like her famous peers, from Christy Turlington to Lauren Hutton – both of whom she name-checks – it runs through her veins. “It’s like a classic automobile, or a house like Chanel: those things don’t go out of style,” Valletta quips."Would she run for office herself? 'Yes, but I’m not sure anybody would listen. I definitely thought about it.'"
The day before Donatella Versace would reunite four of the original supermodels on her September runway, I am at the Baglioni in Milan having lunch with another member of that exclusive club. Amber Valletta, of course, already walked Versace last season. The week after, in March, she led an ensemble cast of models from the 1990s down Dries Van Noten’s catwalk to mark his 100th show, fronting a new wave in fashion where models are once again encouraged to be more than just mannequins. “I wouldn’t normally be running around with a bunch of 20 year olds trying to get into every fashion show, but everything I did last season was appropriate,” Valletta asserts. At 43, age-appropriate is hardly something she needs to be concerned about. Fair-skinned, blonde and built like a racehorse, she somehow fuses grace, sophistication and sex appeal in one all-American package, dressed head-to-toe in sparkly Isabel Marant, whose show she also walked last season. “You can wear glitter in Milan in the day,” as she points out. When Valletta returned to modelling a few years ago following a break to focus on her acting career, you couldn’t call it a comeback. Much like her famous peers, from Christy Turlington to Lauren Hutton – both of whom she name-checks – it runs through her veins. “It’s like a classic automobile, or a house like Chanel: those things don’t go out of style,” Valletta quips."Would she run for office herself? 'Yes, but I’m not sure anybody would listen. I definitely thought about it.'"
Whereas the new generation of household name models are largely children of celebrities with a knack for social media, supermodels like Valletta were created out of nowhere. “I do think we felt like there was more character then, because there was. There was only, let’s say, 50 girls who were working all the time, and then you had the top 20. I think there was more character because there was more time to develop these women, but it was also that you didn’t see them on a constant basis,” she points out. “That’s one of the problems with social media: there’s no mystery left in anything. It definitely affects how we feel about people, because you see these kids don’t have much going on except for selfies and going to parties or whatever. It doesn’t feel like the life experience is there, even though it might be.” With an Instagram following of 312,000, Valletta isn’t a stranger to social media, but contrary to the new generation of models, she limits her activity to work. “Listen,” she says, “those girls are hard workers and all that social media stuff is a talent in itself. I’m obliged to do it for work, but if I wasn’t obliged, would I do it?” As you’ll quickly come to realise, Amber Valletta isn’t one for fluff. A wild child in the 1990s, she’s been sober for nearly 20 years and has devoted her spotlight to the struggle for sustainability in the fashion industry and beyond.
This season, she and her 6’5 tall, 17-year-old model son Auden McCaw – whose father Chip McCaw Valletta divorced in 2014 – feature in Mercedes-Benz’s #MBCollective 2018 campaign for Concept EQ, the automobile giant’s new electric car. They manufacture an electric smart car already, but it’s too small for the gruelling traffic Valletta has to brave in Los Angeles where she lives with her boyfriend Teddy Charles, a hairdresser. Next to his Mercedes GL 63 (which has a power-saving start/stop engine) she drives a Tesla, a competitor that’s surely putting pressure on energy-saving competitors like Benz? “Absolutely, and they should!” Valletta says, exercising her unswerving no-nonsense approach. “People are buying Tesla because it is good for the environment and represents those values, so it’s just logic.” For all the higher ground Valletta takes in life, she never comes across priggish or self-righteous. After placing her meticulous salad order of cucumber, carrot, tomato and “maybe some grilled chicken on the side” – negotiations with the waiter that eventually result in an avocado compromise – she leans back. “You know when you just feel like all you’ve done is eat pasta?” Apparently even Vogue cover girls (13 times over) cave in to the temptations of Milan. “I’m going to have the mozzarella, even if I’m having lunch with a supermodel,” I say apologetically. “If I hadn’t eaten two pizzas back to back, I’d join you,” Valletta retorts.
This season, she and her 6’5 tall, 17-year-old model son Auden McCaw – whose father Chip McCaw Valletta divorced in 2014 – feature in Mercedes-Benz’s #MBCollective 2018 campaign for Concept EQ, the automobile giant’s new electric car. They manufacture an electric smart car already, but it’s too small for the gruelling traffic Valletta has to brave in Los Angeles where she lives with her boyfriend Teddy Charles, a hairdresser. Next to his Mercedes GL 63 (which has a power-saving start/stop engine) she drives a Tesla, a competitor that’s surely putting pressure on energy-saving competitors like Benz? “Absolutely, and they should!” Valletta says, exercising her unswerving no-nonsense approach. “People are buying Tesla because it is good for the environment and represents those values, so it’s just logic.” For all the higher ground Valletta takes in life, she never comes across priggish or self-righteous. After placing her meticulous salad order of cucumber, carrot, tomato and “maybe some grilled chicken on the side” – negotiations with the waiter that eventually result in an avocado compromise – she leans back. “You know when you just feel like all you’ve done is eat pasta?” Apparently even Vogue cover girls (13 times over) cave in to the temptations of Milan. “I’m going to have the mozzarella, even if I’m having lunch with a supermodel,” I say apologetically. “If I hadn’t eaten two pizzas back to back, I’d join you,” Valletta retorts.
She’s not holier-than-thou about her passions, either. While she’s not a fan of animal products, she does wear leather. “Besides my shoes most of my leather goods – and I only have three leather jackets – two are up-cycled leather and I keep them forever. My leather pants I’ve had for, like, eight years,” she tells me. Fur? “I’m not a huge fan. I don’t think it’s necessary where I live. I’ve worn it but it was vintage, but I wouldn’t do advertisement on it. If they put it on me in a story, I’m not going to fight them but I’ll ask them, can we do something different? I don’t love that,” Valletta says. “But sometimes you’re in a situation where you can’t get around it. You show up and the whole story is exotic skins and furs and they didn’t tell you. What are you going to do? Walk off the job? We have to stop being black and white about issues. If the animal is treated humanely and not clubbed to death, and the by-product can be used for food, and it’s someone who lives somewhere like Scandinavia where it’s freezing, it makes sense. But when it’s just a luxury item on a handbag it’s kind of stupid.” Faux fur, she explains, is often completely toxic and “almost worse.” And so, we venture into sustainability, a topic even fashion hasn’t managed to make glamorous yet. “It’s because it sounds like ‘corporate responsibility’,” Valletta says in a mock-nasal voice, eyes rolling.
“It’s like, nobody wants to hear that! Karlie Kloss wore a gown that was sustainable and ethical, and she looked hot. That’s how it needs to be. And it also needs to be accessible to people, who are working hard all day just to put food on the table. It’s not for the elite.” Every summer, Valletta presents the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, which gathers industry power players in the name of sustainability. She lists Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Reformation and Re/Done as the best examples of sustainable brands, and says that H&M “do a lot but they need to not produce so much stuff.” And she has a way with putting things into mind-boggling perspective, too. “The fashion industry employs, I think, a third of the population if you talk about textiles all the way to fashion-fashion, marketing and advertising,” she tells me. “We have the opportunity to really influence society. It should just be smart business: if you’re less wasteful you’re going to save money. If your factory is capturing energy and reusing it, or recycling water, you’re going to be much more profitable. Instead of making new fabrics, recycling and using biodegradable fabrics is just logic. Think of all the job creation with all this innovation! They’re going to do some crazy shit in the next couple of years, like leather grown in factories and not from animals.”
Valetta was born in 1974 and grew up Tulsa, Oklahoma. Asked where her environmental awareness stems from, she tells me about childhood weekends spent in nature at her grandparents’ farm; about her activist mother, who stopped a nuclear power-plant being built and served food to the homeless. “We didn’t have a lot but she would always tell us, ‘There’s way worse. Shut up and figure out how you can be of service to people!’” Valletta started modelling at age 15, and became one of the highest paid supermodels in the 1990s before starring in films such as What Lies Beneath and Hitch, and TV series like Revenge. She loved The Fall, Ozark and Downton Abbey, and confesses to watching American Idol and The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. As for The Real Housewives? “Oh god no, I can’t stand it. They’ve asked me before, actually. ‘Hell no!’” Offer her a role on Transparent, however, and “I’d be on there in a heartbeat,” Valletta says. “I’ve had some great work as an actress, but I’m looking for something that’s more artistic and interesting: an independent cable show or Amazon show. Just something that’s a good story.” For now, however, she is planning her entrepreneurial future in the fight for sustainability, by way of her first profession.
“I thought about talking to some of the models, who have collaborations with designers, to get them to use their power. How great would it be if Gigi’s line with Tommy was sustainable? Fucking awesome. I’d buy it in a heartbeat. They have the opportunity to do all organic and recycled denim. The price point is perfect, and she can push the shit out of that.” They’ve met already, Valletta tells me, but “backstage at Versace isn’t really the time to talk about it.” When the day comes, Hadid better brace herself. Amber Valletta doesn’t chat; she converses, passionately and compellingly. Every morning she meditates and prays. “I don’t subscribe to religion, it’s just a spiritual side. Literally, I pray to the universe for everyone to have safe travels to good health to friends of mine, who are struggling. I pray for Donald Trump,” she says, deadpan, “and for people that are being devastated by earthquakes,” comparison most definitely intended. “I just wish he’d get off Twitter. It’s so shameful,” Valletta notes. An acquaintance of Hillary Clinton, she resents the way Trump’s campaign treated the presidential candidate during the election. “She’s incredibly intelligent. She’s a lot warmer than people think. There was a lot of failure to accept a woman: women against women, and men having prejudice against women. She was speaking to the issues but people don’t want to hear it. They want a soundbite. They’re not listening.”
Nor does she seem to remember Melania from the New York modelling scene. Valletta laughs. “She was a supermodel? Honestly, I do feel sorry for her. I actually don’t think she’s that bad. I mean, the poor thing has to suffer with that guy.” But Valletta says the troubles in America are only reflective of a scary global zeitgeist. “I can see why someone would want to become an anarchist,” she notes. “We’ve taken all these steps backwards, and yet so many of us are stepping forward and want equality for women and gender and sexual orientation and race. Not to mention that we want to do it on a safe and healthy planet. It just seems like we’re inviting such poles. It’s like good and evil.” Like the struggle for sustainability, Valletta argues the issue starts with greed. “I don’t believe that in order for me to have great things and live a prosperous life, everybody else has to suffer. I don’t think that’s true. We have enough fresh water if we all share and start pumping the water out of flooding areas. We have ways to get food to places in Africa but we don’t. We have ways to cure illnesses but we don’t.” Would she run for office herself? “Yes, but I’m not sure anybody would listen. I definitely thought about it. All my dirty secrets are out, anyway. The nude pictures are online, I’m clearly open about my sobriety… I mean, there’s not much else to tell.”
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