Fashion Neurosis with Christy Turlington

44:02and you really embodied that in the most extraordinary way. And when I talked to Sam at night and he described doing the hair for that and that Vivian wanted it to be like someone had had their hair caught on fire or something. But how did you find working with her and did she tell you anything? She was amazing. I don't know if I can remember the first time that I met her, but I remember in those days we had a facsimile. I remember her sending me a letter, please come to the show. Maybe I did one show and she was like, please come this season. She's like, oh, I was in the National Portrait Gallery the other day and I saw a painting and it looked just like you.

44:49It was Girl with an Ermine. Oh, yeah. And she sent me a print of it. I mean, just a museum shop print. It wasn't like anything fancy, but I wasn't familiar with the painting. But of course I was like, I need to know what is the girl with the ermine? What does she look like? And I realized that I think it was the ermine. I think I look more like some sort of strange feline-ish creature than the girl. But it was the ultimate compliment to come from her that first of all, that she was thinking of me in a museum. Or that she saw my face in someone from another era. And I loved working with her because the clothes were so beautiful, but I loved her sense of humor and the cheekiness that she had.

45:36And, you know, there were not so many women. No, it's true. And there was something special about being in the space of a woman. and also just, again, the energy of that space. And obviously, you know from having worked with her, others that are photographers who grew up in that environment, people just talk about how unique that was. Also, she really created, I guess she would be an exception. There were like those kind of runway moments, but there were also that picking the perfect space and the little settee and the little chair and then your look and that your hair is on fire or whatever it was.

46:19The show you're talking about with Naomi when she had that fall, that is one of my favorites. I was wearing this beautiful yellow dress. So stunning. And we had our faces that were powdered white. But I remember when Naomi had that fall and it was everywhere in the press. And obviously it was my biggest fear to fall, especially in shoes like those. And so it was like one foot in front of the other, being as mindful of your steps as you possibly could be, but terrifying. And then when Naomi fell, who's probably the most confident on her feet, it's like, this can happen to anyone. But yes. And then she made some kind of amazing insurance campaign out of it.

47:08It's like, that's how you fall and you get back up again. I must say she made falling down look like the most ravaging thing. I know. It's just like kind of an incredible deer that just arranged her legs. And then she laughed. It was so beautiful. Yeah. That show was incredible. You were all so, I just felt so happy because when I'd worked for Vivian, and it was a point where everything had stopped and her and Malcolm had split up, and he'd really been very adversarial and hostile. And then she started again from nothing and just made these things of such exquisite beauty. And, you know, the erm in those little fake fur capes that we would cut out black fur and insert it, cut a little hole in the back of the white fake fur and put it all in and have a ribbon.

48:13And so watching that show and seeing you embody her, you know, this thing that was in her heart from looking at all these paintings and reading all these books and then it was just the most, you know, talk about radical beauty. It was just devastating. it was and so exhilarating yeah I loved it the pieces that I have I have a few pieces from some of those collections nothing like a gown I really have many occasions I don't think to wear them but they really felt incredible but I have little vests and there was the the kind of corset with queen and it had like the pierced nose and um like these beautiful tartan vests and And like the pieces that I have are like treasures.

49:03And my daughter, when she was a teenager and sort of started to care about anything from my past and kind of dig into my closet, that was the most exciting find for her was the Vivian stuff. That was of all of the things that brought about the most joy and the most excitement. and it was so fun to see that Vivian lives on but that she has had this whole resurgence amongst young people and I think it's like that exquisite beauty but as you were saying that punk rock because she was always like such a deep part of that also and I think that juxtaposition, it's very special. I remember her making that for the first time and thinking, I mean who's gonna I mean I was so shy and so kind of prudish and introverted and there she made this thing that squashed your breasts and brought them up under your chin even if you barely had anything I thought who's gonna wear that and I saw everyone they were like oh my god yeah I'm gonna be like this because it wasn't just it was so much more than sexy it was like sexy and like Joan of Arc.

50:21It was so powerful and independent. It was such a great look. And it was comfortable, weirdly. I think there are some corsets that, I mean, I'm sure you couldn't breathe to sit in them, but there was some flexibility in them and they weren't constraining. They actually were, I had like a great little kilt. those kilts they're so good a kilt that i wore with that um corset and i remember being like so comfortable and so confident in it because it also well like yes it did sort of push your breasts up you also felt kind of like a tomboy at the same time that's exactly it yeah it's that's so true because you see those you know those kind of ravishing women and then there's you know someone in a powdered wig looking like really cool on a horse and going to the in the battlefields and it's a blending somehow or other and you said uh steven misel was one of the first photographers that made you feel like you had something special to offer and i wondered what did he bring out in you he was very silent as well you know he i think i had first of all big crush on him And I just thought he was so beautiful.

51:46And I loved the work so much. I'd sort of cut out pictures after I had started modeling and started to pay attention and look at some of the more like the Vogue Italian, French Vogue and British Vogue. His pictures always stood out to me like those pictures of Jenny Howarth with the bleach buzzed cut or Kim Williams. Just these women that I found so beautiful and androgynous and cool. and so to get to spend time with him and work with him was really special but then he just treated me like everyone else he treated me like you know what do you want to do what do you want to listen to and um I loved that as I just like felt very seen by him as a young person even if I wasn't shooting with him on the day I would go after my job and come over and just hang out just to hang out and chat and gossip and you know be silly with we played a lot in those days like we he would say that he'd kind of come into the studio not really knowing what was going to be like now there's these like mood boards and everyone's got their research and it's all which is nice too like there was a lot of there's a lot of references we just didn't have them all there in the room to be drawing from we'd watch a lot of movies we locked we would do movie nights and watch like Anna Magnani and um you know I just learned so much from that group in those formative years and then we'd get into the studio like let's play let's do an eye like this and a mouth like this and Stephen would get in there and actually do your hair or do your eyeliner like he loved to hands-on and he loved models that was the other thing and a time when And I mean, sometimes depending on the room, I would be like, yeah, a fashion model.

53:37When I was a student and I was modeling on the side, I could say that. But as soon as I was like just a model, I didn't like that. I didn't feel like that felt like it represented me. But being around him and seeing his reverence for models of periods of time that came well before my time, it kind of made me think like yeah what's wrong what's wrong with the model yeah exactly what what what's not okay about this and um you know again I don't know if it's if sort of societal pressures were kind of projected on me to make me feel less than in that way or relationships that I had at the time making me question it I'm still glad that I went on to pursue other things but I remember that moment of like why why why could that not be enough yeah um I mean I loved I met I got to meet not through Stephen but I came to love her through watching movies with Stephen like funny face and um we all loved Dovima and her character because she's so funny and I got to meet Dovima um at some sort of Ford model agency dinner and she did the famous elephant in the gown in front of the elephants was that avidon avidon exactly and she was sort of standing and she was the most like elegant long-limbed long-necked creature and then she's this funny parody of herself in funny face where she is the model and um of course audrey hepburn is the not model but then gets discovered and so just sort of seeing the juxtaposition and she She kind of does this, she's just sort of very like, you know, it's always like elephants, the this, the that.

55:29But she had this voice, not in life, but in the movie. It was like a kind of queen's accent. And it would throw you because you look at this divine creature and then all of a sudden she's like, yeah, what do you want to do? So anyway, but I got to meet her and she was incredible. And at the end of her life, sadly, she was working in a pizzeria in Florida somewhere. never had any money i don't think got to have any of the proceeds of any of the images of those amazing avadon photos and that always kind of broke my heart for her but just generally for the amount of people whom we don't know by name or by image who contributed so meaningfully to this like important um you know genre of art and fashion yeah don't have any credit or it's like music isn't it yeah these amazing artists and they haven't got a penny yeah I mean the fashion industry can be ruthless and but there's a lot of loyalty too and Mark Jacobs described you as being the first top model that really supported him in his career and that you'd bring your supers friends girlfriends to his shows and how did it how did it feel to be bringing someone's work to life in a show like that such an important moment he's such a great designer he's such a great designer um mark i think was probably one of the younger designers in that era like mark felt like a peer right away um when i first started working for vogue and i was like 16 or so mark was kind of just doing his sweaters, his knitwear.

57:17He'd been working at a store at Charavari, I think. And then he started doing this little collection. And then he became a little bit of a fashion darling. And some of the editors or buyers knew about him and were kind of helping to get him out there. And I remember meeting him at a Steven shoot. And he was having his portrait in one of his sweaters with a model. And I remember meeting him in the studio. And I remember just being like, again, had a crush on him. He was beautiful. He had this long hair. And he was just like, he was like this New York, both of them were these New York figures and kind of icons to me.

57:54And the fact that I got to sort of grow up with Mark. So one of his first collections that he had when he had his own brand, I did that show. And it was like in an office room. It wasn't even in a showroom. It was literally, they moved out desks and made a little thing. And I remember the shoes were coming from Japan and they were laid and all the sizes came like really big. And he would also give us clothes in exchange for doing the show. And it felt fun. It felt like being with a student or someone that was going to have a really big future. And that was just exciting to be with or amongst at the time.

58:34And then just to getting to see that that continued to evolve. So I'm glad that he thinks of me in that way. There were other models. You know, each designer kind of has their troupe. And so he had his models. And I love how designers can be very loyal to their fit model or their person. That was the very first person that they tried this and that on. And they would keep them. They would keep them to be in the shows. And they would keep them more front and center in their collections long after others were dictating who they wanted. That always resonated. And I remember, I don't remember the name of the model, but I remember this sort of short-haired kind of gamine girl that was always in Mark's studio.

59:20And I think that was really cool. Also to androgyny. you know I think um a lot of his his fashion over time even though it has changed and is so evolved now and I love how fun and playful it is um there was always like a bit of androgyny and I don't know I guess I also felt more comfortable like in the pantsuit yeah um than I did in like something constricting and tight and long well he is good like that he plays with identity I suppose in this way that's that you you really respond to and you want to find out more and feels kind of feels like something that you've grown up with in a way that you're exploring and trying to relate to and you you featured in Ricky Leacock's documentary Catwalk in 1995 and it's the most brilliant film and he was a brilliant filmmaker and I was he did he ask you things that you weren't expecting because it's not really his milieu fashion but he's he's such an artist I I I knew him very slightly and um I even made him pancakes once oh sweet tell me more Well, he was married or very long term with my stepson's mother.

1:00:53So they came round. This must have been 20 years ago. And I was on a macrobiotic diet. And the only way I could get any kind of sugar intake was to make these gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free pancakes. with some apple sauce in anyway i made them for myself and he he said oh i like these pancakes and they sounded so dull but actually they were quite tasty and i always remember him liking them but it was it was yeah it was a great great um film really good it's so interesting because i don't think there was much of a premise for it honestly he'd done he'd filmed the truth or dare doc with Madonna, which was so beautifully filmed as well.

1:01:47It came to me that project through, I guess Isabella Rossellini recommended me. They were trying to find a way in. And I don't know exactly why we met, but we didn't know each other well at the time. I love her. I think she's like the most beautiful woman in the world. Still, like so beautiful. But she was friendly with the producer of the film. And I guess when they were talking about names and people to go to, she recommended me. And so when they came to me, I thought, well, I don't really want an act. I was already kind of getting ready to kind of step away. Like I already kind of knew like, okay, maybe I have one or two more seasons left.

1:02:33Maybe this would be a good thing to document. I also felt kind of like I wanted to show kind of more of the sort of whole side of the industry. Yeah. Because as much of it can be rough and can be tough and not welcoming or maybe exclusive or maybe… can be cutthroat in some ways. there's so much that's really fun and relationships are deep and there's that playfulness occasionally. I just wanted to show kind of like what it like what does that feel like? Yeah. Not that I again had a lot of control over what they saw or what they captured but they did come with me actually the trip that I mentioned coming from Dublin with Naomi and Kate the very first city that they came to join me in was Milan.

1:03:22So when we flew in from that trip, we arrived and they were there at the airport and that's when we started filming. And after you spend like 24-7, you start to get to know it's just two people on the crew really. And they were with me from morning to night, you know, in the car, on the street. And even if there might've been some awareness of them in the beginning, very quickly that kind of fell apart. But I will say that being with a crew and having a mic, you know, at lunchtime, people would sort of after a while, like disappear from me. It's like, I'm not doing an expose, but I got that. I'm glad that people were aware of it.

1:04:10But I definitely felt like I couldn't fully be myself because people couldn't be themselves all the time with me. But just out of sheer hours, they managed to get quite a lot that helped. In the editing of the project, the film sort of took a little bit of a turn in the sense that they were wanting to feature more of the bigger name designers, probably to have more support or I don't know you know it's like to me I questioned it all I was like they didn't do as much about azedine they didn't do you know like the the smaller brands definitely were not and that to me felt like a commercialization of what it was yeah and I thought well I didn't do this to promote Valentino and Versace I did this to kind of show the whole of it yeah um so I got in a bit of a fight with the producer and then I sort of walked away and it had a different name in the beginning.

1:05:08So when it finished, I wasn't thrilled with it, but the footage I do love. And now that time has passed and it's like a little bit of a, I mean, really, it's a really special piece of history that's been captured in that footage. And so many of the designers are not with us anymore. So I'm really grateful to have had it. But yeah, the experience. And interestingly, also Malcolm McLaren did the soundtrack. And maybe I met him around that time, but he was not very nice about me in the end. I think he said when I kind of dropped out of it, was like, wow, this could have been an opportunity for her to become an actress or whatever.

1:05:51And I was like, well, that was never my intention. I was not hoping this was going to be some launching off pad at all. But there was like a little bit of, yeah, just not kindness. Yeah, that's really irritating actually, isn't it? And the music is kind of annoying, but it does get in your head. I don't remember the music. I just remember, like you said, the footage was so great and you were so full of life and so intelligent and like focused. And then it was so sweet, you know, seeing Kate and Naomi around you and how you came together and what you were all you know working so hard and and sometimes I think you're perceived or you were perceived as a good girl because you are a very you are a serious and thoughtful person and you're you seem to be good at holding your own you know it at such a young age and in that documentary we see you kind of negotiating a contract and stuff it's really impressive I just wondered what the naughtiest thing you've done fashion moment is I mean there was plenty of naughtiness um I guess relatively speaking I was a good girl and I was a good girl in the sense that I am serious that's like my nature I'm a I'm a Capricorn and I'm a earth sign.

1:07:16I'm a, like, that's my true self. But we had a lot of fun. And I wasn't like, you know, if people were going out, I was going out. I just would need that time in between. I just didn't have the constitution to just like keep going. And that, thank goodness, saved me, frankly. But one trip that I had, actually you spoke about the Naomi falling on the Vivian Westwood stage. or runway. Years later, I was working for British Fogue with Mario Testino at this beautiful old kind of manor somewhere in the countryside in England. And it was kind of a rundown manor. So they were renting it out and you could sort of stay there in a hotel capacity or for shoots or whatever.

1:08:06And so half of the crew stayed in this manor and half of us stayed in the hotel above the pub in town and I stayed with the younger set well actually I wouldn't say younger maybe there were some peers that stayed in the house but we stayed out of there um to have some space from our workplace one of the very first days that we shot in the house we were in like this one kind of cozy library space there was a fireplace and there was that photo blown up of Naomi having fallen in the Vivian Westwood show. That's a strange photograph to have. In the photograph, you can sort of see, because in the magazines or the tabloids that covered it, they were very discreet and protective, but really in actuality when you fall and you're in a little miniskirt, you're sort of exposed.

1:08:58Not fully exposed, but you're exposed. So in this photo, it's the version where she's more exposed. And I thought, I can't believe that, first of all, that they've left this here knowing that we're coming here today and that we're setting up in the space. Second of all, that someone is selling an image like this to aristocrats for their private enjoyment. I took a Sharpie off of a desk and I filled in her knickers to be like grandmother pants. and it's one of the best things that I, I mean, I was like, triumph, like, what are the chances? I mean, I'm sure there are many more out there somewhere, but I felt like, how dare this person have this photo?

1:09:42And Naomi's got me on her back and, or at her back or with her back, and I am not going to let someone have this. And if you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to no because I married that that person um I don't think I'm as much of a fashionista or stylist person to be honest to be judging anybody else but my husband bless him when I met him what I loved is that he all didn't care and was very like so opposite of my industry and people I dated before. Not that I dated anyone who really cared about their fashion either, come to think of it. But I kind of loved that she's like literally rock and roll t-shirts and jeans and very like doesn't care.

1:10:40And then anything that he did have that was on the fancier side was because he'd been given it or wore it for a film or something. And so but then it would be like, oh, well, this is a name brand. So I have to hold on to it forever. So I was like, no, no, you actually don't have to wear a Calvin Klein suit from 97. That would be not the era to like hold on to forever, maybe, or whatever the year was. And so over time, still to this day, actually we went to dinner last night and he came upstairs and I'm always like, uh-oh. And he actually looked great. I was like, oh, he's like silver fox now. He's got a beard.

1:11:14He's got long silver hair. And he was wearing like a sweater, turtleneck, and a blazer. And I was like, actually, this combo of things was really attractive. Some days he'd come up the stairs. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. You cannot wear that sweater with those pants, those shoes, whatever. And I really am like, I feel like it's my job to protect him. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be thought through. just has to go with they just have to just have to live together yeah in like a world that they make sense in and he has no idea he's like he wants comfy which i want comfy too but he wants comfy in a way that it's like comfort definitely trump's um style it's a good approach though it's protecting someone from these hideous clothes that make them look like the person that they maybe aren't but yeah other people that are bold I I think I have more of a if I see when I see people wear really bright colors I never wear bright colors but I I like them in the world I like seeing the person in the party that has the bright thing or the person that wears a bright red lipstick everywhere for me I like red lips but it's too much work to maintain yeah um so I can't.

1:12:38But the people that put that much time and attention, like they're doing it to be appreciated. And so I think they deserve appreciation and, you know, you don't want to just like let it slide. You want to be like, wow, that's amazing what you've done, whether it's for you or not for you. But I have an appreciation, I think, for people that put time and attention or that just have that natural ability. Like you brought up Helena before. Helena has this exquisite taste and like everything in her homes is like every little inch and detail is so perfect. And it's something that's meaningful and she spends time and she's thoughtful and she cares and she goes through flea markets.

1:13:24I don't have the patience or the attention span to do that. I also don't think I love anything enough to be a real true collector of um i don't know if that's good or bad you spoke about attachment earlier i'm very non-attached to things yeah um which i could say is a sort of maybe a spiritual thing a practice but i don't i mean i'd like to think that's what it is but i don't know what it is i'm just not an attached person to things i think it's i mean it couldn't be good or bad really it's just what it is but I know what you mean about Helena everything everything she wears she does and her how she is she's so beautiful and then those pictures of her going into the ice water oh oh like I was just in Copenhagen actually for the very first time and she arrived when I was leaving so I didn't get to see her there but I feel like I understand her even more now because I've been there even though she has that juxtaposition um you know her mother's from Peru my mother's from El Salvador so we've had that shared bond in like a Latin mother grandmother lineage um and I would say that Peruvian thing is very in her as well like that's the other side of her right her world traveler her layers of sweaters and patterns and textures and things like that but I really think she's very Danish yeah and that that the refinement of an aesthetic yeah yeah it seems on so many levels you know intellectual and tactile and how she actually is I am just re-watched the George Michael Freedom video which you and Linda and Cindy and Naomi and Tatiana were in.

1:15:21And it's really something. And was George Michael around at all or involved? Because he's so shy. I wondered how involved he was in that. He was incredibly involved. Really? God, how great. So many of us were very close friends with her Brits throughout our careers, but certainly in those years. and the first call that I had about it or maybe it came through the agency first and I was like oh music video not a lot of money um which at that time was like it sounds trite but actually it mattered to go across the world for a day yeah um so it's like oh is it worth that um and while I love George Michael already it was sort of it was like but do I need to be in the video to appreciate him not necessarily so it was really herb kind of brokered it for us he reached out and he said oh you know i i love david fincher and he's directing this this um this this video and he's in the middle of making his first feature film he's doing alien 2 in london and that's what has to be in london and he's done all these madonna videos and he's incredible and the light's amazing And, you know, you love him.

1:16:38He's young. He's so cool. And so he talked to each of us separately. And eventually we kind of like, okay, like if you're going to do it, I'm going to do it. And we kind of collectively decided like a favored nation's fee to do it. It wasn't a ton of money, but we're like, okay, it's fair. and then we were off and we didn't the music was like not even out yet so I think I received the music like the moment that I got picked up at the airport and so I was given a Walkman and on the drive was like probably an hour or so from the airport I just listened to the music it was it been a red eye flight and I got into the soundstage went into a motorhome which was on the set and then Guido was there and the makeup artist Carol and Camilla Nickerson was the stylist and listening to the music again through hair and makeup.

1:17:36Then I met David Fincher who came in to talk. I don't think I met George until I went on to the set, but he was on the set. He was looking through the lens and the camera. He was very present. Everyone shot separately with the exception of Linda and I's. We had one scene which is kind of a great scene but also a very interesting risky scene to do. We had a scene where we were like blood sisters pricked our fingers and put our fingers together. It's a thing I grew up doing with my best friend when we were little. But this was like early 90s. HIV AIDS is a big thing. Again, didn't think about the symbolism, didn't think about But really understanding even the words or the intention, because I don't think we knew yet.

1:18:25George hadn't spoken yet about why he chose to do that video the way he had or that album and what it represented in terms of breaking away from his label and feeling like he didn't have choice and he wasn't a free agent and didn't have the freedom to be the artist that he wanted to become. And I think also that like that fame on that level that only people like George Michael or Madonna experience, you know, something so different than any of us, I think. But he was there for my scenes with Linda and I think he really loved Linda. I think we all know now that George was gay, but we didn't necessarily know that at the time.

1:19:11Yeah. Or we didn't, you know, he hadn't sort of said that out loud, I don't think. And so it was kind of funny because we're like, I'm pretty sure he's gay. But he thought Linda was just, I remember us kind of joking around, singing Georgie, Georgie, Pudding Pie, Kiss Delos, which is one of her nicknames, and made her cry. He didn't make her cry. I think she loved the attention. They actually ended up becoming, I think, quite good friends after. And we're talking on the phone all the time. I mean, she did another video of his later. But I just remember thinking, that's so funny. George Michael has a crush on Linda Evangelista.

1:19:49It was really, really sweet. So good. Really, really sweet. So now we know on the flip side of this 30 plus years later is that he did. He had a lot to say in the record and in that video. And in choosing David and in choosing all of us, it was very specific what he wanted to do. and I think he very much finished the edit himself. I think he took it away from David Fincher. I don't think David did the final cut. And I'm pretty positive like George needed it to be, maybe it's just what he needed to do at that point. It's like everything about it had to be his own and I think that was the final thing.

1:20:32And they've redone that song. They've redone videos of that song with other models. and I think is it I'll get the name wrong not Robbie Robertson Robbie Williams he redid it I think at some point it just isn't the same it's not the same because it's not it's not George's wish he is also a very good singer and entertainer but he's not George Michael and then when George passed at like 50 I just remember it was around Christmas time and I remember hearing it on the news or whatever and I just remember being so saddened by that news. Again, not having been very close, but having that tiny, tiny connection and knowing how meaningful it was for him in the span of his life and a turning point for him in terms of, I think, living his life on his terms.

1:21:31I don't know, really touched me and yeah and I still will go through phases when I'm home alone and I want to play music but I don't play regularly where he would be a go back to maybe not freedom but like come on a different corner it's like you just want to weep yeah you just want to hear his beautiful voice and cry I know he really he was such an artist and everything you've described makes complete sense because he was a perfectionist and you know the way he pushed the boat out just the way he made music and songs and broke away from you know his traditional background and and all his kind of thoughtfulness about where he came from and so impressive and you you founded your only your own charity every mother counts and which supports pregnancy and birth around the world and was that after experiencing problems during the birth of your first child and I just remember I have one child and I remember after about 20 hours of labor I thought I just want this I just want to go home I want this to stop and then I realized I had no agency whatsoever and And it was such a terrifying moment.

1:22:52Yeah. It can be. It really can be.

1:22:58I, for some reason, many years ago before becoming a mother, I imagined that if I, I never knew for sure because I already had a lot of friends who tried and had a difficult time. So to me, it wasn't a given that I would. but when I met my husband and when I realized this was the person that I wanted to become a mother in relationship with I um I felt so ready you know I I had lived I mean I was 34 when I had my daughter Grace so I was I didn't feel too young I had had a long first career and I had done a few things after going back to school and got to sort of experiment with other interests.

1:23:44And I felt like my life is certainly not over, but I'm not going to enter this next stage of my life and feel like I'm missing anything or resentful because I don't have the freedom. I felt like I'm so ready right now. And so everything was really amazing. Like I had, I had incredible options. I wanted to do it naturally and without any kind of interventions or without medication, certainly. But I was also willing to listen to my body and my midwife. And if the situation required it, I wasn't going to have to be a hero and risk my life by any means. but it all went like perfect perfect perfect eddie was very supportive of what i wanted to do i had actually wanted to give birth at home and he was like maybe not home so we thought well birth center is a good middle place um at the time there were more of them there are like very very few now in new york the one that we chose is no longer but we chose this place which just had a few rooms and it was located within a hospital and so like if things go wrong you don't have to be transported and yeah you're just a left away um and again everything was perfect i was home as long as i could be and then just had to travel up the west side highway 15 minutes to get to the hospital and then when i got to the hospital i there was like a bathtub so i could kind of like I was fixated with water.

1:25:18I just helped the time pass and it kind of calmed me down. So I got into the tub. And when I was ready to sort of push, I got out of the tub. I had this amazing midwife that I loved. My husband's in the room. Like it just everything felt like perfect. And then we didn't know the gender of our child. So that was another like, who is this going to be? What's coming? and so I delivered her found out it was a girl beside myself my girl name was always Grace my whole life my grandmother's name was Grace and so met her bonding with her like all the endorphins all the amazing feelings and then time sort of passed and like as they're cleaning up the room and there comes a fourth stage of labor, which they kind of gloss over in all the childbirth education, which is when you actually deliver your placenta, which is a large organ-sized second birth, essentially.

1:26:23And so that wasn't happening naturally, which can happen when you're dehydrated or exhausted or in my case, it had grown attached sometime through the pregnancy into my uterine wall. And so it actually had to be extracted. And that had to happen quickly and it had to happen manually. So the physician who was backing my midwife came in to intervene. They let me stay in the birth center and didn't transport me or make a huge like emergency kind of fuss. But again, my medication-free birth, I didn't have any pain meds. So all of this was excruciatingly painful, way more painful than the delivery of my eight and a half pound baby.

1:27:10There was a lot of blood involved because it's all vascular. And so when that happened, you know, that's technically a hemorrhage. I lost several liters of blood and fortunately didn't need to be moved to have a blood transfusion or have a surgery. But it was all very confusing, very painful. And also, like, to go from feeling like a freaking warrior, badass, invincible human female, it's for being, like, on my back, not knowing what's happening, being in pain, being confused, being scared but not for my life per se. But just, like, in that position of not being in control and not knowing. And I think in any kind of healthcare setting, a lot of people feel that way.

1:28:01Like you give up your power, you don't understand your body, or you expect somebody else to know better than yourself. And I think that experience really, I don't know, it connected me to so many women and other mothers and other people who are in that position of not knowing and being in pain and being scared and not having the words and not having the ability to advocate for yourself. self or to know what you need or what you want next. So I felt incredibly grateful that I had chosen the right people to be around me, that I felt safe and that I could go home that day or the next day. And I thought I need to do something.

1:28:44I need to share my story and I need to learn about, I want to know other people's birthing experiences. I want to advocate for more options. I want to help empower more women and girls to have that. I say girls because so many women that become moms are girls. Yeah. Not by choice. Not by, yeah, not by choice. And so how to inform and prepare more of us to have the empowering experience that I actually ultimately had even with that complication. Yeah. And so I sort of dedicated my life to that. My daughter, Grace, just turned 22. So I've been advocating since then, but in a formal way. Really, probably, I mean, my organization just turned 15 this year.

1:29:39So Every Mother Counts started as a campaign along with a documentary film that I made called No Woman, No Cry, which I made when I was a student studying public health at Columbia. So I kind of went deep in. And I had my second child a few years later. And then I thought, okay, I wanted a third child. But my husband was like, nope, you're alive. We've got one of each. We're good. And so I put all of that energy that I might have put into a third child into this next chapter of my life. And my 15-year-old child nonprofit is, I'm ready, I'm getting it ready to sort of like become its individuated thing.

1:30:23It's thing that can stand without me more and more. But it's still, it's an issue that I believe in so deeply. And I know that it's an issue that won't be solved in my lifetime. And so I know for the rest of my days that I will advocate for this issue. But I also, it's exhausting to work on issues that are largely intractable because they are systemic in nature in terms of access and human rights and the things that are essential, honestly, to have good health and to thrive. so there's a lot of things that I can't control but I'm deeply committed to doing everything that I can to ensure that more of us have a positive experience and not only survive pregnancy and childbirth but actually come into their own in that next phase of their life because when you become a mother it's transformative Like it's like it opens up so much capacity, like capacity to love and capacity to feel and to empathize.

1:31:44And it's not that you have to have that experience directly of like birthing a human to do, but it just happens. It happens. and what you do with that and how equipped you are to be able to take that that potential and make it something like truly meaningful um we all have that that opportunity and i want more humans who feel that and have that connection and feel motivated to to do more because in you know people are quick to dismiss people um activism and advocacy and from fashion people but i i think that we're really good at it and uh because people in fashion are used to overcoming so many obstacles and you know it's so full of kind of complications and so i think uh it you know it sounds like your experience of that has brought this kind of clarity to how to make this important thing effective that you're involved with it's it's really impressive impressive I mean I definitely saw um I saw people in our industry definitely step up and use their experiences in a in a really powerful way that definitely was an inspiration and I got to learn and get close to it before having an experience that sort of directed my ability to do that.

1:33:25But as an industry, you're right. Like I often will think, because there's not a lot that I could say about the job and how that has sort of like how the act of modeling has actually informed what I do now as an advocate but um the industry as a kind of collective power and the ability of like how you come together for like a united purpose um and because like especially around HIV AIDS for sure when I came into the industry and like every week there was someone that you were hearing of who was dying or who'd been diagnosed and like it was just so prevalent in my formative years as becoming a sexually active person and a young woman, like the terror of coming into your own in those years was real.

1:34:17And so that was one of the first causes where I saw so much happen around me and I felt so deeply connected to what we were trying to do in terms of raising awareness and resources for research and to care for people. So yeah, hugely i mean it's still needed today um and you see some of those early uh fashion groups still doing it yeah still committed to it still raising money like incredible and then obviously cancer um so many of us have lost someone to cancer in our lives and seeing how the industry as well especially the industry that's been so focused on women um to see how people have rallied around breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

1:35:04I mean, Liz Tilbaris was a legend as an editor. And then when she was diagnosed and how she used her experience and was so open and so vulnerable and so out there. And then the legacy of her when she passed and how much we all felt committed to her cause long after she left us. yeah um so yeah there's so many like there's it's easy to i think be cynical or to be thinking like to try to sort of take away some of the beautiful things about the industry that is around beauty um but really at the heart of all of that is true and it's it's it's authentic and it's it's real yeah and we're good at what we do yeah thank you so much christy tellington for being on Fashion Neurosis.

1:36:03I remember writing to you way before I came up with how it would work and you said, oh, this sounds like fun. And it's so great that here you are lying on the couch in New York and we finally got to have this conversation. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Bella. It's been lovely talking to you all day. I could just sort of fade away into this couch now. LOL