It took a classically cinematic real-life moment to make Milla Jovovich realize how deeply respected she was -- as a designer. The model and actress is one half of the team behind Jovovich-Hawk, a fashion line she established in 2003 with her friend Carmen Hawk, a singer, artist and former model. Milla recalls how, on a recent trip to Spain, she learned just how pervasive the Jovovich-Hawk sense of style is. "I walked into the hotel and this girl was checking in," she says excitedly, recalling how she recognized the super-gorgeous woman at reception as Eugenia Silva, a top Spanish model. "I saw her from the back and I thought, 'Oh, she looks great. Is she wearing vintage?' And then I thought, 'God! I recognize that floral! That's Country Disco in black -- our dress from fall!'" Asked if she spoke to Silva, Milla looks incredulous. "At first I was just looking at her to see what she would do," she says shyly, going on to explain that the two had a conversation and it turns out the Spaniard owns a boutique in Barcelona that sells Jovovich-Hawk. That's quite the switch: the movie star recognizing the model. Jovovich-Hawk's story is pretty cinematic itself. Luckily, it couldn't have two more gorgeous, likable, multitalented and contemporary women as its leading ladies. Carmen, a self-confessed "recovering dilettante," is a Missouri native who spent her teen years in San Diego. (She received her surname from her mother's marriage to a Native American.) While visiting a family friend at 15, Carmen was scouted by a model agent. Seventeen magazine did a piece on her in 1988 -- the headline was "Crazy About Carmen" -- and she went on to live and model in France, Italy and Japan. But Carmen, now 34, has always been more of a stylist and art director. She captured the fashion zeitgeist in 1999 when Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani asked Carmen to style herself in a 22-page spread shot by photographer Craig McDean (Carmen and McDean were once a high-profile couple and have a daughter together). Sozzani, a true arbiter of style, says of Carmen, "She has always impressed me with her strong sense of personal style." French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld, who commissioned a story on Carmen when she was designing her own line (and had the clothes photographed on Milla) says, "Carmen was always a woman of true style." In 1994 in New York, Carmen co-founded a band, Friends of Dorothy, which was signed to EMI records. She relocated to Los Angeles in 2001, where she worked freelance for legendary art director Terry Jones for the seminal style magazine i-D.
Meanwhile, Milla's career is legendary. In a world where models are lucky to work for a few years, Milla has clocked in decades as a superstar. Born in the Ukraine to a Russian mother and Yugoslav father, she moved with her family to California as a child. She made her acting debut at age nine in the Disney film Night Train to Kathmandu. Shortly afterward, Milla needed head shots and visited a photographer's studio; the crew there was so amazed at how the photos turned out that they sent Milla to a model agent, who in turn recommended her to photographer Herb Ritts. He immediately booked Milla for cover shoots with The Face and Lei. That was just the start. When she was 11, Richard Avedon shot her for the cover of the now-defunct magazine Mademoiselle. When the editors discovered Milla's age, they said they couldn't run her on the cover for fear of a backlash. Avedon told them that they'd run the photos he gave them or he'd never shoot for Condé Nast, Mademoiselle's parent company, ever again. The pictures ran.
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