Decoding

She falls outside the lines of conventional beauty, but supermodel Karolina Kurkova makes the perfect ambassador for IWC’s new Da Vinci watches for women who define beauty on their own terms.

- Grace Tay

With legs that go on forever, bombshell blonde tresses and chiselled features wrapped in a dazzling smile, Karolina Kurkova is as supermodel as super models go.

Where symmetry has been scientifically proven to be inherently attractive to the human eye, however, she defies the evolutionary psychology of attraction. It’s no secret that behind that confidence and camera-readiness were teenage years beset with insecurities. Stick-thin and towering over her peers, she was so painfully self conscious about her frame that she kept her long arms and legs covered up, Kurkova has shared in previous interviews; she was taunted by other kids about her big teeth.

But at 15, Kurkova found her footing in modelling, and learned to take those same attributes and run with it: her height qualified her for the industry; her unique looks made her stand out. Now a few years shy of two decades in modelling – with magazine covers, Victoria’s Secret Angel, Pirelli calendar girl and a few TV roles checked off her list – Kurkova as we know her today moves with ease and poise on the runway and red carpet, in front of the camera and in her prolific social media posts (@karolinakurkova).

As a brand ambassador for Swiss luxury watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, she starred in The Code of Beauty, a short film in IWC’s #TheCodeOfMe campaign for the new Da Vinci collection where she explores a Florentine Palazzo and discovers her unique DNA of beauty. (Incidentally, that hashtag garnered the most number of Likes and posts among participating brands at the SIHH 2017 watch fair, making IWC leader of the pack by far in terms of social media influence, according to influencer marketing company Launchmetrics.)