“My new project, Elbi, was chosen!,” Natalia Vodianova enthused as she talked about getting an opportunity to speak about it at the Clinton Global Initiative. “Elbi is a platform that brings the power of social and the digital world to charities to connect with people around the world.” Because many charities do not have extra funding to build their own app, she found that many not-for-profit organizations are rather running behind and missing out on enriching social opportunities. That’s where Elbi comes in. It’s an app wherein people can gather, review charity partnerships, share the love, and support the cause—either by currency or through drawings. Yes, drawings! “Charity should be more than just clicking on a donate button,” she says with a frown. Call it “micro-philanthropy,“ in which small actions can make a huge difference in someone’s life in need and have a substantial impact.
As she walked me through the app, it was painfully clear that her heart bleeds to make a joyful difference in people’s lives, for the ones who are in desperate need because their situations are so die-hard, a place that echoes her aching past.
“For example, this little boy’s name is Asawha, and he is in need cleft-lip surgery, but if you don’t have any money to donate you can submit a drawing to show your support for Asawha. Then the charity will choose various drawings that they love and will send them to Asawha, and, in return, for the ones who made the drawings, they will receive a photo of smiling Asawha. Furthermore, one can also pledge a dollar [or more] on a drawing, too, to endorse the art form and its support, which will directly benefit that charity. And that’s called a ’donor beneficiary connection’.” She was speaking of the three-way partnership with the [Smile Train] (https://www2.smiletrain.org) and for all who donated either in currency or through art. They get a photo back with a child’s progress—this is an operation on a very human level wherein all parties are really connected. “There’s an emotional reward. Others can endorse your actions…. It’s a bit like crowd-funding, but raising money on behalf of charity.” A charity with a lot of dignity at heart.
She’s come a long way from that first moment when she landed her very first Calvin Klein ad campaign, back in 2003, starting with underwear, naturally. She was 21.
“Euphoria fragrance campaign came as a joint contract with Calvin Klein Underwear, which was larger than life for me, especially at the time for me, for a young girl coming from a really difficult background. It was really ’euphoric,’ to say the least,” she reminisced. Fast-forward to now: Calvin Klein Euphoria fragrance is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a brand-new campaign, photographed and directed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, visualized on “Eternity Beach” on the island of Honolulu, Hawaii, where Vodianova is wearing—possibly—the longest dress ever made by a designer. “I needed 10 people to hold up the dress any time I had to move!“ Vodianova speaks adoringly of the house designer, Francisco Costas (click here to see making of the dress here). “He is one of the kindest, the greatest, most generous and wonderfully laid-back people I know…. He’s very easy to work with, a real collaborator, but he knows exactly what he wants.”
She transitioned from being an almost-teenaged mother (birthing her first child at age 19) to becoming a mother of four children (the first three with Justin Portman, and now, her youngest, with her current partner Antoine Arnault). Now that she’s 33, I asked her who she was back then and who she now sees in the mirror.
“I was always strong already back then, but in a different way…. I was less peaceful. Now, my strength is accompanied by a feeling of peace and almost to surrender. Surrendering to the fact that this is who I am, this hard-working creature who wants to do good. And the peace comes from the fact that I am able to do much good, because, early on, my life was so difficult…. When I was young, I built these habits, always fighting for something, not knowing what tomorrow will bring,” she explained in a very heart-felt tone. “You know, baggage can be tools. I’ve been able to divert them, my baggage into tools. When I became incredibly successful, I had a sense of wanting to do something, because modeling is limited in its ambitions, and I am an ambitious person but for something that made sense.” And that’s when her Naked Heart Foundation began in 2004, a not-for-profit organization that provides play facilities across Russia for underprivileged and disabled children, which is thriving each year.
Vodianova certainly acknowledges the amazing career she’s achieved, but she’s even more ecstatic because “today, this success completely supports this charity work that I am doing…. I am a quite a private person, but I understand why I am sacrificing this privacy.”
Come mid-October, there will be another Naked Heart Foundation moment in Sochi, Russia, where she will feature a music video that she wrote (loosely based on her mother and her disabled sister, Oksana), performed by the biggest Russian pop star, Dima Bilan (of course, she makes a cameo appearance in the video) and followed by a flashmob dance, #немолчи—a message to stop the discrimination of disabled children and families is all set to go.
With all that she has accomplished in such a short fairy-tale life of literally rags to riches, I ask her what the word “euphoria” means to her. With no hesitation, she declared, “Love! I associate euphoria with love, because, for me, it’s about loving something so much and being so happy. It’s about those loving moments in my life. Moments of celebration, like launching Elbi and being with all my children, special moments of dancing and being silly, moments that you just want to pause.”
Here’s a dictionary meaning of the word “euphoria“: a state of intense happiness and self-confidence.
I think we can all agree that Calvin Klein sure picked the right girl a decade ago.
