Toni Garrn

November 1, 201410 yr

from tfs :

Article from vogue.com

Victoria’s Secret model Toni Garrn doesn’t hold back. On a phone call in mid-October, the model quickly proves that she has no problem delving into her emotional trip to the poverty-stricken country of Burkina Faso. “There was this girl who told me she couldn’t go home because when she went home in April, she was shot in the head with a bow and arrow by her grandfather and father because she didn’t want to be forced into marriage,” says Garrn. “She wanted to go to boarding school, which the charity Plan International is supporting. Her mom visited her in the hospital, crying for her to never come back home because she was going to be killed. She was thirteen years old—and asking what can I do for her.”

Well, it turns out that Garrn is doing a lot for the girl she met in Burkina Faso—and a lot for nearly 600 girls in similar situations. Garrn, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, teamed up with the Hamburg-based denim company Closed and the charity Plan International to design a line of jeans. The profits from the line will directly go to Plan’s “Because I’m a Girl,” campaign, which provides scholarships for the impoverished women of Burkina Faso. “It is a personal project. In Hamburg, I go to visit both Plan and Closed,” says Garrn, and she also serves as an ambassador for the charity. “I had always sponsored children. At fifteen, I had sponsored two girls through Plan International. I continued talking with the charity because I just thought they did a great job everywhere. They really focus on child protection and education—they don’t just drop food or money. It is more like, ‘How can we make the whole community sustainable? When we leave, are they are better off?’”

Garrn reiterates that the collaboration was “never about designing,” and that her focus was entirely on raising funds for the charity—but the jeans for Closed say otherwise: They’re nothing less than supermodel-cool (think boyfriend waist-fits and motocross embellishments in a range from light to dark). “I just combined a few things I haven’t seen before,” says Garrn of her design process. “They made it really easy for me, I felt like a kid in a candy store.” And when it comes down to it, Garrn’s just as happy if you’re more concerned about your #belfie than Burkina Faso. “Many people are involved in charities but in our world, there are people who just really care about fashion,” the model says. “If they can get a cool pair of jeans and the money happens to go somewhere incredible, that’s a great combination.”