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Supermodel Joan Smalls Dabbles in Design With Capsule Collection
Fellow catwalk stars fete model on her collaboration with True Religion
Joan Smalls, right, with Lily Donaldson.PHOTO: JOE SCHILDHORN/BILLY FARRELL AGENCY
When we told fashion designer Prabal Gurung we wanted to show him a cool song we had on one of our Spotify lists on Wednesday during a dinner celebrating supermodel Joan Smalls’s new collaboration with premium denim brand True Religion, the designer ventured a guess.
“Drip Drop?” he asked.
“Drip Drop” is of course the crass yet improbably catchy hit song from the hit show “Empire,” whose season finale also aired Wednesday night. Mr. Gurung is a big fan of the show, as are we. But the song was actually one by Beck we downloaded after it was played during Mr. Gurung’s runway show in February.
Fashion designer Prabal Gurung. PHOTO: JOE SCHILDHORN/BILLY FARRELL
“I’m absolutely fascinated and enthralled and excited” by “Empire,” he said, adding that he was recording the finale. But Ms. Smalls, who has walked a few times in his runway shows, is a really good friend and Mr. Gurung gladly drippity dropped everything else to support her. “I’ve known her for such a long time,” he said. “Just to see her trajectory from model to a supermodel. She’s so smart to be able to leverage the position and the audience and the platform. I’m very happy for her.”
One could say it’s like she’s building an…empire.
Another friend there to lend—and get—support was fellow model Jacquelyn Jablonski, who was wearing white leggings from the Joan Smalls X True Religion collection, which went on sale this week. “Joan did a good job on the butt,” she said. “Literally I feel like they lift your butt.”
That would be music to Ms. Smalls’s ears. She test drove the fit of the jeans she participated in designing. “I’m Latin so it’s really important that it accentuates your best body part,” the Puerto Rican beauty said, following the last word with a girlish laugh. Ms. Smalls said she thinks every woman wants her derrière to look good “no matter where you’re from” or wants a boyfriend to “see you in the jean and say ‘Wow, you look really good.’ ”
Model Anais Mali. PHOTO: JOE SCHILDHORN/BILLY FARRELL AGENCY
Ms. Smalls made sure she checked her rear in a full-length mirror during the making of the line. “I was like, OK”—which she stretched out as okaaayyy—while mimicking the checking and approving she did. “Passed the test.”
Model and friend Lily Donaldson, who showed up to Ms. Smalls’s event wearing a dark pair of jeans from the line, said “they feel amazing, like she [feels] to be around.”
Wearing the jeans means “now I can hang around with her all day.”
Others who came to the Gramercy Park Hotel rooftop to hang around with Ms. Smalls included model Anais Mali; Harry and Peter Brant; photographer Steven Klein, who shot the ad campaign for the collection; Bernard Smith, Ms. Smalls’s longtime boyfriend; and True Religion executives.
Peter Brant and Harry Brant. PHOTO: JOE SCHILDHORN/BILLY FARRELL AGENCY
The 16-piece capsule line for women—which also includes high-rise briefs and cropped sweatshirts with the Spanish word sueña, a loose translation of “dream”—marks Ms. Smalls’s first design collaboration.
During the toast, Ms. Smalls thanked the True Religion team “for believing in me and for giving this Puerto Rican girl her dream of designing. I’m really happy.”
In another area of the room, a screen projected the promotional video shot by Mr. Klein featuring Ms. Smalls twerking, writhing, shaking it, bending, and flexing sexily, with an unseen wind machine adding drama. Ms. Smalls said she was really feeling it: “I grew up with music and just moving around, it just felt really natural.”
But there was something else at work. “It just proves that the pants can stand the test of when you go out and you’re like dropping it low and picking it back up” (and here, it should be noted, she mimicked doing such while wearing white leggings from the collection with heels.) “So I can tell you they do not rip. They feel like a second skin.”
Write to Ray A. Smith at
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