Veronica Webb: I’m happy to be a beginner at 59

Veronica Webb on Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam October 2024 issue. Dress, Reem Acra. Jewelry, Larkspur & Hawk

It’s hot as a furnace outside. I’m grateful to be indoors Zooming with model, actor and entrepreneur Veronica Webb. The groundbreaking beauty joins me for our conversation, from her home in Palm Beach.

Webb deals with the heat with the kind of assurance a professional stylist might bring. Her look says: I could be relaxing by a glistening blue swimming pool with a glass of cucumber lemonade in hand. She’s wearing a textured navy and cream striped caftan which falls to one side to reveal a smooth brown shoulder. Handwoven by local women, she purchased it on a trip to the Yucatan, she says. It goes well with her earrings from Tiffany & Co.

Her thick, dark hair is pulled off her face, soft wisps arranged around her forehead. Behind her, long gossamer drapes and minimalist, curved furniture form a symphony of soothing whites and neutrals.

Webb just returned from a three-week trip to Venice, Italy with her husband, entrepreneur Chris Del Gatto. “When I was modeling I traveled a lot,” said Webb. “But I never really got to see the places I visited.”

Traveling takes up much of Webb’s time these days, by her own account she’s “a voracious reader” and she’s passionate about sharing with other women, what she’s gleaned from 40-plus years of being exposed to the best in fashion and beauty. Her fans span all ages, and she speaks with authority to all of them.

Dress, Bibhu Mohapatra. Earrings, Alexis Bittar

Veronica Webb comes across as a straight-no-chaser kind of gal. This is true whether she’s dishing out style tips, discussing civil rights or demurring to speak about her past paramours out of respect for her husband. She and Del Gatto have been married since 2013 and dated quite a bit before they tied the knot. Together they’ve raised a blended family of four children.

They sent one kid off to college each year for the past four years, said Webb. Now the nestlings have flown the nest, mama bird is ready like so many parents of adult kids, to spread her own wings. I want to begin again,” said Webb. “I’m happy to be a beginner at 59 years old.”

Phillip Bloch, the uber stylist and designer, who has dressed more stars than any planetary cluster including Jennifer Lopez, Julianna Margulies and Halle Berry, has known Webb since the Eighties when they both walked in a John Galliano show in London, and he’s watched her evolve.

“She’s the original influencer,” said Bloch. “In the same way Madonna was cool before anyone was doing cool, Veronica’s been cool from day one. She’s not cool because she’s pretty, she’s cool because she’s inquisitive.”

She’s prepared. She’s an overachiever. She wants to know it better than anyone else.”

Dress, Zhivago from The Residency Experience. Green earrings, Gyan Jaipur from Flying Solo. Ring, Almasika Fine Jewelry from The Hinton Group

Knowing how to look one’s best, work with what you’ve got, is an art as well as a skill that women are always eager to master and Webb is well suited to teach. “When (women) look for a role model, you want someone who actually does it,” said Bloch, “who’s authentic; who walks the walk and talks the talk – and that’s Veronica. It’s been interesting to see her find her place in the new digital era coming from having an extraordinary career.”

Born in Detroit, Webb dropped out of college at 19, spending the next two decades establishing herself as an actor, writer and one of the world’s top models. Work took her to fashion’s capitals Paris, Milan, London and New York. She unforgettably appeared as a teenage victim, impregnated by religious leader Elijah Muhammad, in Spike Lee’s seminal movie Malcolm X about the slain civil rights giant.

She bulldozed her way forward walking runways for Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Isaac Mizrahi, Todd Oldham, Versace and Azzedine Alaïa with whom she stayed for a while in France and learned to speak French (more recently, she’s been a favorite of sizzling designer Sergio Hudson, whose archetype is the glamorous Eighties power dame).

“There were a lot of limits placed on Black girls at the time as to what you could or couldn’t do,” recalls Webb.

Vòng cổ, Maison Margiela.

Gaultier booked her for his highly anticipated 1993 New York show “All the girls were in it,” Webb recalled. “Iman, Esme, Janice Dickinson, Talisa Soto, Isabella.” Hours before the show began, hordes began to mass outside the venue. “Club kids stormed the show,” Webb said. “They got backstage and stole all the clothes. I had to go home in a garbage bag because they took my clothes too.”

She did the first Victoria’s Secret show in 1995 and landed the cover of Elle six or seven times. That first cover, today looks as fresh and relevant as it did back in 1987. Webb wears a chocolatey brown shearling jacket, her face – sporting those signature thick brows – expectant with emotion. (When Webb’s mother saw the cover in a local grocery store, she called her daughter collect from a payphone. “I wanted to make sure it was you before I spent my $3 for it,” she told Webb).

Another Elle cover soon followed: Webb in a red leather Alaïa jacket, shot by Elle creative director and star-maker, French photographer Gilles Bensimon. “That was memorable because Alaïa was there,” said Webb, “and he had just finished making the jacket. Red leather jackets were hot. To have a leather jacket was expensive, it was like buying a diamond ring.”

Dress, Lever Couture. Bracelet and earrings, Roberto Coin. Shoes, Narciso Rodriguez.

Then Webb landed the gig that every model hopes for and that was elusive for all Black models – a major cosmetics contract. A contract gives models a regular paycheck and more editorial work, which usually begets lucrative advertising jobs.

In 1990, she became America’s (maybe the world’s) first Black model signed to a beauty deal – via Revlon – and “it felt incredible,” she remembers. “Everyone called me to congratulate me. Tyra called me. Iman called me. Bethann called me.”

An autobiographical book captured her supermodel exploits. Veronica Webb Sight: Adventures in the Big City hit shelves in 1998. Reporting for Interview magazine, Webb flexed her writing muscles in a genre-defining story on Mary J. Blige; a riveting piece of journalism it drew admirers and detractors alike.

She now says that’s not a mountain she’d like to scale again. “At the time I wished we had another day or two to sit with her, but we did not with deadlines being what they were.”

The scribe in her may, however, write another book. “I’d call it Confessions of a Supermodel,” said Webb.

Dress, Nardos.

Webb is cut from different cloth, says her friend and colleague, the respected writer, art and fashion historian Amy Fine Collins: “Although she’s a model she seems to have a full identity beyond that. She always was kind of distinct from [other models].

She’s not necessarily in the glamazon, supermodels category. She had a voice as well as a face and she kind of led with her intelligence, not with her face.”

True to that form, Webb redefines what life post- 50 looks like. Everybody ages. Scientifically at birth, we begin the process. Yet there’s a barrier that still needs to fall, which limits who or what we think women over 50 are supposed to be. She’s outspoken on pro-aging as opposed to society’s cynical anti-aging stance.

Dress, Benchellal. Earrings, Del Este Jewelry from Flying Solo.

This fall, Webb will launch a beauty initiative. She’s mum on the details for now. Non disclosure agreements prevent her from saying more, she says. Though she’s tried other startups, she feels the need to enter the entrepreneurial space once more, helping women be their best. “The best piece of advice I ever received about skincare,” said Webb, “is take your skin seriously.”

“I go out and test everything so you don’t have to,” said Webb, who has a slate of pithy aphorisms she applies in conversation. Webb says her approach is focused on: “How to solve problems in fashion and beauty without thinking you are the problem.”

“There’s a stability and a strength to her,” said Collins. “I’m not sure where it comes from. There’s something there that has kept her on a steady course.”

“I was never afraid,” she said. “I was confident and fearless.” Her upbringing taught Webb that presentation was significant; details important. Uniforms during the week and dressing up on Sunday gave shape to her life.

Dress, Benchellal. Earrings, Del Este Jewelry from Flying Solo.

“I was always attracted to modeling growing up,” said Webb. “The sewing, the ironing, the fitting, the hair pressing, the ribbons, the shoe polishing, the hair oiling, the braiding, that helped me a lot as a model,” she said. “Going to church was the equivalent of a couture show.” When she decided to pursue a modeling career, her pragmatic but supportive mother told her, now you’re starting a business. You need to pay us back for school because we invested in this. We have two other kids to send to college and graduate school.”

Webb struggled to stay afloat the first couple years. “Models were booking $100 a day for editorial, and you were in debt to the agency,” she explained. However, “there’s nothing like having been hungry to keep you hungry,” said Webb. Pretty soon, she had bought her own apartment on Madison Avenue in New York City, “a significant milestone,” she said.

“One of my big memories of safety as a child was how well-turned out I was every day,” said Webb. “For people to be able to put themselves together in a way that makes them feel confident, and that draws attention to them in a positive way, is an amazing thing. It makes people happy and gives people hope.”

And hope is something we all need.

Top, Balmain. Earrings, Almasika Fine Jewelry from The Hinton Group. Shoes, John Ashford.

** Creative Team **

Talent: Veronica Webb @veronicawebb
Agent: Iconic Focus Models lori@iconicfocus.com

Producer/Photographer: Tom Marvel @tommarvelphotography.
Creative Director: Cannon @thecannonmediagroup at Ray Brown @raybrownpro.
Writer: Constance White @officialcwhite.

Lighting Director: Pierre Bonnet @jpierrebonnet
Director of Video: James Weber @james_weber

Makeup Artist: Meghan Yarde @gorgeouslygritty
Hair Stylist: Derick Monroe @derickmonroe
Nails: Casey @caseynails.

Digital Tech: Olivia Wohlers @wohliviaa
Grip: George Pepe @gspepe
Photo Assistant: Michele Swain @@ michelewihelminaphotography

Shoe Stylist: John Ashford @johnashfordshoes
Fashion Team: Winnie Noan @winnie_noan; Alaye Alleyne @alayealleyne; Malak Ismail @xxmalak;
Kana Kobayashi @iamkana85.

Retoucher: Anne Nguyen @retoucher_anne.

Location: Hudson Yards Loft @hudsonyardsloft.

Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam