This May, Lucky, an American shopping-oriented magazine whose cover is usually reserved for celebrities, features Joan Smalls on its cover and an excellent interview with her inside.
How much do you know about Joan? Here are our highlights:
Smalls was born the youngest of three sisters in Hatillo, Puerto Rico, to a social worker mother and accountant father. […] “It’s country,” she says. “Everything surrounding you is green. It’s pure bliss.”
Life on the farm gave her a love of the great outdoors, but it was television that introduced the lanky tomboy to the world of high fashion. She traces her career aspirations back to the series E! True Hollywood Story, which showcased catwalkers Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Christie Brinkley. […] She also recognized a bit of herself in their images. “I was so awkward-looking—tall, super skinny, gangly. The boys at school made fun of me,” she says. “But I’d see those girls on TV and I’d think, Oh, they have my same body type.”
At 13, she began signing up for modeling competitions, which involved traveling—sometimes for hours—to compete at shopping malls. “I lost every single time. We had a gray minivan, and one time it broke down during a long drive home, and I remember thinking, Is this even worth it? But I loved it. And I had my family’s blessing, which was cool. My parents were into it. They were like, ‘Why not? It’s a fun extracurricular activity, and she has good grades.’ Their support was crucial, because I didn’t have a license to get myself places.”
Education was always priority number one in her household. Before Smalls made an attempt at a full-blown career, her parents had one condition—that she get a college degree. She did so in just two years, barreling through an intensive program in psychology at a university in San Juan, and graduating magna cum laude to boot.
Diploma in hand and undeterred by her previous modeling track record, she took a trip to New York and met with a number of agencies. One of them, Elite, promised a contract contingent on her East Coast relocation. Smalls returned home, packed her bags and moved into her aunt’s apartment in Queens, where she slept on an air mattress in her cousin’s bedroom. That summer, she turned 19.
“New York was quite a shock, but I was so eager and hungry,” she says. “I’d take the bus to get on the subway to make it to castings.” And then came the rejections—hundreds of them. “You’re competing with 40, 100, 200 other girls. You go to a call, see the casting list and you’re number 202. And you know there are just a couple of open spots.”
“I would say to myself, I just want to get to a place in my career where I don’t have to do castings, because it was grueling. There are so many places to be at once, you’re always running late and then having to wait your turn. Now I’ll sometimes see models rushing around the city, and I totally feel what they’re going through.”
Perseverance paid off, and within the year she had booked gigs with brands including Tory Burch, Neiman Marcus and Liz Claiborne. Then, finally, came a turning point. “I shot with Coco Rocha for Liz Claiborne and was like, wait, I’m in a picture with her? She’s huge! Maybe I can really do this.”
The work remained steady, albeit mainly commercial, until high fashion came calling. In 2010, Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci handpicked Smalls to star in the French house’s spring haute couture show. “I had been shooting a lot of catalogs up until then. Riccardo bleached my eyebrows and I suddenly became this androgynous, versatile model. It kick-started my career for sure,” she says.
She also works out, often. In addition to sessions with a personal trainer and regular solo visits to the gym, the fitness enthusiast has recently taken up studying Muay Thai boxing, a Southeast Asian combat sport. “I did kickboxing in college, and I wanted to learn another discipline, another martial art. I really like to have a practice—none of that ‘Oh, I’m boxing for cardio’ stuff.”
“I come from a Latin culture; rhythm is in my roots,” she says. It’s also her therapy. “If I have an early shoot and I’ve just gotten off a plane, or I haven’t slept, or I feel gross, I’ll dance around and be silly,” she says. “I put on Drake or Nicki Minaj or Cultura Profética, a Puerto Rican band. It gets me pumped up.”
“I feel like a good amount of women have used modeling as a platform. People like Gisele and Cindy. And I think that’s really cool, not only for models but for women. It shows that you can have a voice and a say. You can have a brand and be your own boss. It’s empowering.”
