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Things were not looking too good.
One day, Smalls decided to motivate herself by filling a notebook page with a list of goals.
They were big and highly specific.Model for Chanel.
Get photographed by an iconic photographer like Mario Testino.
Wear angel wings at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
These aims might seem a tad unrealisticbut only to those who have not witnessed Smalls’s unstoppable drive.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Few can electrify a catwalk like Smalls, now one of the world’s top models.
Her perfectly symmetrical face and golden skin have made her fashion’s reigning It Girlnot to mention thatbody.
Lean but athletic, it’s a work of art in its own right.
(Women already ask trainers for the “Joan Smalls butt.")
On the runway, Smalls moves with a confident, commanding gait that telegraphs pure power.
The catwalk is about performance, and she brings to it the discipline and skill of an athlete.
But she is not coasting on her genetic good fortune.
She treats her body like a fine machine that requires meticulous maintenance.
Rather than living on cigarettes and hitting the clubs, they’re waking up early to hit the gym.
“So I need to take care of it.”
Her regimen includes regular workouts with trainer Marc Gordon.
“I need to push myself,” she says.
Smalls’s height shot up when she was 13.
At 14, after her sister was diagnosed with scoliosis, Smalls got checked out, too.
“The lower half of my spine was inside out,” she says.
“I started crying.
I couldn’t believe that was inside my body.”
She quickly talked herself down.
“I said, ‘I’m not going to use this as a handicap.
I’m going to push myself harder.'”
She threw herself into rehabilitation exercises and stretches.
To boost her strength, she took up boxing at 17.
“People might think that because I’m skinny and tall, I’m fragile,” she says.
“But I always knew I wasn’t.
And it’s comforting to know that I can throw a proper punch if I have to.”
Photo Credit: Patrick Demarchelier
