Fashion icon of the month: Bianca Balti

This month I want to talk to you about an all italian beauty: Bianca Balti, one the three most famous italian models with Maria Carla Boscono and Eva Riccobono.

Class 1984, Bianca is beautiful, graceful, smart, sincere and funny... everything you don't expect when you think about top models. Her career starts 8 years ago, by chance: she's noted while she's working as promoter in some supermarkets of Lodi, her hometown, by some talent scouts who work for Dolce e Gabbana who catapult her into fashion world. The two designers choose her personally as testimonial of the adverstising campaign of the brand. Since that moment begins a short but intense career that continues to rise. From rebel girl with shaved head and full of piercings, she starts to work and cross the catwalks for the biggest brands in the fashion system like Dolce e Gabbana, Missoni, Donna Karan, Roberto Cavalli, Armani, Antonio Berardi, Victoria's Secret and many others, partecipating to several advertising campaigns that make her famous in the world, like the commercial for the fragrance Black XS by Paco Rabane, without forget, among the others, the partecipation to the 2005 cataloge of Victoria's Secret, the campaign of Mango, Guerlain, Christian Dior make up, Cesare Paciotti and several photoshoots for magazines like Vogue Japan.

Bianca Balti in Cesare Paciotti advertising campaign 2009

Thanks to her harmonious phisic and her angel face, Bianca becomes the new face symbol of brand Missoni that nominates her as its favourite model, wanting her for every fashion show and adverstising campaign. Thanks to her face, she is chose for the cover of Velvet, the monthly fashion magazine powered by the italian newspaper La Repubblica (published in 2006), also becoming cover girl for other magazines like L'Officiel (in 2004 and 2005), Marie Claire Italy (in 2007), Vogue Spain (in 2007) and Harper's Bazaar UK (in 2008).

Velvet Magazine - December 2006

In 2007 her fresh and natural beauty enchants the cinema as much as the eccentric Abel Ferrera offers her the meaning role in Go Go Tales, next to italian actresses Stefania Rocca and Asia Argento, presented at Cannes Film Festival 2007.

Cannes Film Festival 2007 - Asia Argento, Bianca Balti, Stefania Rocca

In 2008 she is the testimonial of the advertising campaign of Cesare Paciotti who wants her again in 2009. In the same year she raplaces Angelina Jolie as new face of St.John, next to models Caroline Winberg and and Hilary Rhoda and she also becomes the new face of the campaign of Bebe. In 2009 she is testimonial for the S/S campaign of Ermanno Scervino, of Victoria's Secret swimswear and Bulgari eyewear, she is on the catwalf for Diesel, poses for Playboy France and becomes the face of the fragrance Bellissima by Blumarine. In 2010, she replaces Irina Sheik in the S/S campaign of Intimissimi, while in 2011 she signs a contract with the italian telephone company TIM. In the same year she takes part in a short television documentary for a MTV show "IL TESTIMONE" (on the episode "A life in top", in which she's filmed during a photoshooot for Vogue Japan in Taormina). Starting from 2012 she is chose as testimonial by L'Oreal and joins italian  actress Monica Bellucci in the campaign signed by Dolce e Gabbana.

Bellissima by Blumarine commercial

Dolce e Gabbana S/S 2012



A career in fast rise full of commitments that take her around the world, but that don't prevent her to marry the photographer Christian Lucci in 2007 (marriage ended in 2009), to move to New York, to have a daughter (Matilde, 5 years old) and move back to Italy, facing and clashing with the excessive italian esterofilia.

What I like most about Bianca, is not only her undisputable beauty, but also her personality. Despite she is a beautiful and famous model, she is still a simple girl, who loves her daughter more than anyone in the world, who knows well how lucky she is, who takes her feet on the ground and who has clear ideas, of someone who uses to think with her head and is not afraid to say what she thinks. Just for these characteristics she ahs been celebrated as ambassador and symbol of italian beauty and elegance in the world, trhough a photograph exhibition based on her life, with pictures realized by the biggest photographer in the world, from Karl Lagerfeld (who wanted her as model for the Pirelli Calendar 2011) to Patrick De Bachelier, and curated by Stefano Dominella (president of Maison Gattinoni), called "Bianca Balti: immagini di una favola di moda" ("Bianca Balti: images of a fashion fairytale"), visible in the suggestive Trajan Markets, from July 7th to September 2nd 2012.

Rossella Sensi, Bianca Balti, Stefano Dominella at "Bianca Balti: immagini di una favola di moda" exhibition

Pirelli Calendar 2011 - Bianca Balti

Both on red carpet and in the everyday life, her style is always easy and chic, just like her: a girl soap and water with an elegance and a grace enviable and undisputable. Main elements of her style are:

- Rock allure: she often wears a real glamour rock style, with skinny pants, large tanks and biker boots;

- Skinny Jeans;

- Comfy garments: large tops, sneakers, flat shoes etc...;

- Neutral make up.

Here a little gallery of her style. What do you think?