From child of Communism to the ultimate pin-up to serious fashion icon, EVA HERZIGOVA’s life has been anything but expected. The supermodel showcases after-dark glamor, and opens up to KAY BARRON about values, variety and refusing to be pigeonholed.
During a recent phone call with a friend, Eva Herzigova started talking about the longevity of her career. Spanning 24 years, graduating from commercial model to pin-up, editorial to catwalk, achieving supermodel status in the ’90s – a title that she still holds – she is as much in demand now as ever. “I just don’t get it,” the (thankfully, very close) friend replied.
“He said, ‘Your age starts with a four, you are a hermit, you never go out and you have integrity. Usually, people like you do not recognize success. It doesn’t make sense!’” Herzigova laughs. “I replied, ‘I’ve always worked hard and picked the right work.’ But he pointed out that, in this society, where people sell their souls on Facebook and Twitter, I don’t go out there selling myself – I am very private. It makes no sense to him I still get work!”
Great work, at that. In October in Paris, at what was to be Marc Jacobs’ much-lauded final show for Louis Vuitton after 16 years, it was Herzigova he asked to sit center of the runway on a revolving black carousel, dressed as a somber yet fabulous showgirl. It was unexpected, as it has been years since she walked in a show but, alongside fashion’s new favorite pin-up, Kate Upton, the Czech-born model was the perfect fit. “I saw Katie [Grand, editor and Marc Jacobs’ stylist and friend] on the Eurostar recently, and I told her I was still dazed from the beauty of the show,” Herzigova says. “She told me, ‘Of course you had to be there – it was for the Louis Vuitton girls.’ I have done four campaigns for them, so it was really touching.”
Then, while traveling home to London after Paris Fashion Week, she got a call asking her to fly to Italy to star in a (top secret) SS14 advertising campaign for a luxury fashion house. She flew there the next day, winning another job that models almost three generations younger than her would kill for.
Of course, Herzigova was always beautiful and, at an early Monday morning breakfast in October, near her west-London home, dressed in a Rick Owens black coat, gray turtleneck and black pants, fresh from the school run, she is as stunning as she has ever been.
But the truth is that Herzigova’s fashion career is a bit of a mystery. As she recounts in the early days, she never really fitted in and was pigeonholed, due to her glamor-girl looks. The star (and body) of the 1994 iconic, headline-hitting “Hello Boys” Wonderbra campaign, she was, she says, “the Marilyn Monroe pin-up girl”. She could have dined out on that image for another 10 years. Instead, she dyed her blond locks brunette – much to the chagrin of her model agency – and in 1997 shot an editorial for cult British magazine The Face, with Mario Testino and Carine Roitfeld, called “The Butcher”.
It featured the model dressed in an apron, brandishing a bloodied knife, and instantly changed people’s perceptions of her. “For me, that shoot was a slap in the face to those who put me in the pin-up box. That was my jump from commercial to editorial.” Following the publication of that story, she also opened the Prada runway show. “I could hear people gasp as they realized it was me,” she says of people’s shock, as Prada was more about cool girls, not household names. “That was so satisfying, as I am not a [typical] Prada girl.”
As well as modeling, Herzigova also acts and, 15 years ago, fashion could have lost her to movies altogether. “After doing a few films, I went to LA looking for an agent – and it was just pathetic,” she remembers. “I met people who said, ‘Yes, we can talk about the movie over dinner.’ I was like, ‘What dinner? I can just read the script here.’” After a very short time she gave up because, understandably, she didn’t want to go through what sounds like the sleazy side of Hollywood. But after starring in the Duran Duran music video for Girl Panic in 2011, with fellow supers including Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, she was offered parts in an Italian thriller and has just played the lead in a Czech movie. All on her terms.
Herzigova grew up in Litvinov in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), the middle child of three, during communism. “I really lived it,” she recalls. “But my dad and family never wanted to participate in the Communist Party, so we were the outsiders and had to strive for who we were and what we believed in.” Herzigova credits her family’s strong values and discipline as a significant part of her success. It encouraged her work ethic and strong desire to make it on her own. She won a modeling competition in Prague in 1989, when she was 16, and moved to Paris soon after. She has worked ever since.
“All the supers dated ‘someone’, but I never dated famous guys.” She did marry Tico Torres, the drummer from Bon Jovi, in 1996 – but, in her defense, when they met she thought he was a roofer. They divorced after two years and now Herzigova lives in London with her Italian entrepreneur partner Gregorio Marsiaj (who, when they met 12 years ago, was a student) and their sons, George, six, Philip, two, and Edward, seven months.
“I never saw myself as a mum. There are girls who grow up thinking of marriage and babies, but I never wanted that. But now it is everything to me. When I had the first [baby], I wondered why I waited so long, but it was timing – I never had the right man before.” At the height of the supermodel frenzy, Herzigova partied like the best of them – her long working relationship with John Galliano began when they met in a Paris club and he thought she was a “fun girl”. But now, with both her and her partner traveling for work so often, her perfect night out is a popcorn and Coca-Cola dinner at the movies. Though she still makes time for friends, when she can. “I don’t think this industry allows you to enjoy friendships. It doesn’t know weekends or half-term holidays, so plans for parties and dinners change all the time.”
As to whether she’s in touch with her fellow supers, Herzigova acknowledges that true friendships with other models are almost nonexistent, but there are a special few. “Claudia [Schiffer] also lives in London and has kids, but I know Naomi [Campbell] the best. She is so loyal – if I ever needed someone to help me, it would be her.”
However, Herzigova loves escaping from her job, which involves working with strangers dressing her, or doing her hair. It also influenced her own pared-back style. “In fashion, everyone puts different personas on you, so I decided to stay true to the simple pieces.” While she has never had a style muse, there is a nod to Katharine Hepburn’s closet. “I’m not a skirt girl,” she says. “I love pants, suits, shirts and cashmere sweaters.” When Herzigova arrives on set she is dressed in casual white pants, a white tee and an oversized parka. She has an instant room-filling presence, but in front of the camera, dressed in evening tuxedos, she literally smoulders.
Herzigova’s career began in a different time, when social media didn’t build up models’ careers in a heartbeat, only to forget about them the next. But while she recognizes the changes, she believes there could be another generation of supers. “It happened in the ’60s with Veruschka and Twiggy, and we were born of the ’90s. I think it happens every 30 years – so by 2020 there could be another generation.” Though even then, they will still be losing out on work to Eva Herzigova.
