Amber Valletta has spent decades in front of the camera, appearing on 17 Vogue covers and working with some of fashion’s most influential photographers and hairstylists. Now, as she launches a new chapter in clean haircare, the supermodel is revisiting some of the hairstyles that helped define her career.
Valletta’s relationship with beauty has evolved alongside her work in fashion and her environmental advocacy. She recently joined forces with hairstylist Teddy Charles to launch Maison Beaux, a haircare line built around high-performance formulas and environmentally conscious packaging.
“I learned during my career that beautiful hair is always healthy,” Charles says. The collection includes five biodegradable products spanning preparation, treatment and styling, with packaging designed to reduce environmental impact.
Among the standout products is Le Ultimate Mask, a treatment formulated with collagen, exosomes, peptides and amino acids. Its packaging is designed to break down in a home compost within 12 weeks. According to Valletta and Charles, developing the formulas required extensive testing after they chose to exclude 2,850 ingredients from their products.
“We didn’t cut corners, but instead kept pushing through,” Valletta says, describing the collection as combining salon-level performance with clean-science principles.
Revisiting Amber Valletta’s
To mark the launch, Vogue opened its archives with Valletta, who reflected on several memorable shoots spanning more than two decades.
Her first Vogue cover came in February 1993, photographed by Arthur Elgort. Valletta remembers it as a career-defining moment, recalling that hairstylist Yannick D’Is created the cut that transformed her look. She was living in Paris at the time, and the image featured her natural hair colour.
For a March 1996 shoot with Irving Penn, Julian d’Ys created an exceptionally voluminous hairstyle. Valletta describes working with Penn as almost meditative, remembering his sets as quiet, disciplined and inspiring.
She also revisited a January 2004 image taken shortly after her son Auden turned one, when she had cut her hair very short and was documenting the grow-out process.
Other memorable looks include a retro-inspired 1970s hairstyle for a March 2004 shoot with Raymond Meier, dramatic hair created by Garren for Steven Klein in 2008, and a blonde look styled by Guido Palau for another 2008 shoot featuring her young son.
In 2013, Valletta returned to blonde for a shoot photographed by Mikael Jansson. She recalls that the session took place inside the construction site of One World Trade Center and admits that while she loved bleaching her hair, the process could be damaging.
Across the archive, the hairstyles reveal just how much Valletta’s look has evolved while maintaining the healthy, expressive hair that has remained a constant throughout her career.
some of the supermodel’s most inspiring hair looks.
