On the eve of Hurricane Sandy, as the rest of Manhattan quietly hunkers down, Milk Studios—the famed fashion-shoot joint in Chelsea—is hopping. Indie rock blares through hidden speakers. The New York Giants game plays on the flat screen in the house bar. Katie Holmes, her made-up eyes as darkened as a raccoon’s, loudly scolds her daughter, Suri, for some unknown transgression as they wait for the elevator. And into an airy studio on the eighth floor of the building strides Heidi Klum. She’s wearing a white terry-cloth robe, slippers that clack noisily across the wooden floor, and a huge smile. The 39-year-old immediately makes the rounds on the set, greeting everyone—the stylists, the photographer and his assistants, and me—with pecks on each cheek and warm hellos in her mellifluous voice, tinted with just a trace of her native German accent. She’s coming off a nine-hour shoot, and her day is just getting started.
Yet Klum waves off the offer of a break. “Let’s do this,” she says. She sits on a stool under a set of klieg lights. Her assistants spring into action, flitting about her like hummingbirds. One primps her blonde hair, blown out and dark at the roots. Another carefully paints her eyelashes. Klum looks relaxed, as if she’s at a spa.
Then the photographer, Neil Francis Dawson, sees a shot and starts snapping off photos. Klum hears the familiar sound and, suddenly, she’s on, even with all of the commotion around her. Her focus—that incandescent smile—is totally on the camera now. It’s an object of affection, a recipient of warmth. This is a practised art, honed over two decades. “I love working with Neil,” Klum says of Dawson, a protégé of one of her favourite photographers, Rankin. “Neil is very good with light. When you’re pushing 40, light is very important.”
Then it’s time for a wardrobe change. Everyone is in motion. Camera equipment is shuffled to the next spot. Klum walks over to a standup screen to change. Except she doesn’t really stand behind the screen. Rather, she stands out front, near the lighted mirror. She disrobes right there, in front of everyone, without a stitch of self-consciousness. I look around bashfully. “It’s no big deal,” she later tells me. “I am completely comfortable with my body.”
And why not? That body, along with that smile, that face, and a heavy dose of confidence, has been her meal ticket, yielding one of the most impressive and long-lasting modeling careers in the profession’s history, from a 13-year stint with Victoria’s Secret to the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. And now it’s given her a platform for her transition from body to brain. Just as her highly lucrative modeling career darkens on the near horizon, the sun is lifting on her business ventures, which include two hugely popular television shows, a kids’ clothing partnership with Babies “R” Us, a sportswear line with New Balance, and jewellery and perfume businesses, all of which ForbesLife estimates will earn her $20 million this year.
Her career is not the only thing in transition. Her four kids are growing up, no longer babies. (They range in age from three to eight.) And after her recent, rancorous divorce from the singer Seal, Klum has moved on to a relationship with her former bodyguard. But rather than shrinking in the face of upheaval, Klum is relishing it. “I love what I’m doing”, she says, convincingly. “I love my life.”
Klum asks me later what I thought of the shoot. I tell her that maybe modeling isn’t quite as glamorous as I thought. “Really?” she says. “I think it’s pretty glamorous to wear $10,000 gowns. I get paid to, like, frolic on beaches. I’ve eaten the most amazing meals, stayed in amazing hotels. I’ve seen the world because of this job. I’ve been so lucky, you know.”
That setting up started at an early age. At 20, Klum designed a perfume with her father that was sold in Germany. In her early 30s, she did a 50-50 partnership with a company on a line of jewellery. She owns the line of kids’ clothing that’s sold through Babies “R” Us. She has a women’s apparel line with New Balance that’s currently sold on Amazon but will be featured in Lady Foot Locker stores next year. She designs jewellery sold on QVC. She’s created five perfumes for Coty and has an AOL website in which she and her staff dole out beauty tips. And, of course, she still models from time to time, most recently appearing in ads for Jordache. Klum is very hands-on with all of her businesses, poring over business reports and designs in her home office in Los Angeles. She says she has aimed for the midmarket. “I make more money that way, and it’s really powerful to have an idea that can almost immediately go out to 260 Babies “R” Us stores.”
(This story appears in the 08 February, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)