Priyanka Chopra Jonas on Her New Gloria Vanderbilt Campaign and Her Focus on Giving Back
Priyanka Chopra Jonas is very particular about the companies she’ll work with. The actress, author and philanthropist has been a longtime ambassador for UNICEF, works with Max Factor and created her own hair care brand, Anomaly, that is free of harmful chemicals and packaged in recycled bottles.
And on Aug. 1, she will officially be unveiled as the new face of Gloria Vanderbilt.
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Chopra Jonas is the first celebrity to front a Gloria Vanderbilt campaign since the late ’90s when Helena Christensen served in that role. She will be featured in a multimedia marketing initiative that will include digital, social media, out-of-home and in-store components.
The campaign is meant to inspire women to speak up for what they want and will spotlight the Amanda jean collection, which includes the Amanda Classic, one of the original fits developed by the brand.
“Whenever I work with a brand, it’s very important for me to understand what we have in common,” Chopra Jonas said. “What I love about Gloria Vanderbilt was that it was built by a woman specifically for our bodies, our curves. I really love the campaign — I Have Needs. Fit Them. — because it goes against the norm of women having to constantly conform to people’s needs. This amazing campaign encourages women and inspires them to be themselves — and I think that’s a really important thing, especially coming out of the pandemic.”
Chopra Jonas, who is married to Nick Jonas and has a daughter, Malti Marie, born this spring, has a lot of irons in the fire. In addition to her work with Gloria Vanderbilt, Max Factor and Anomaly, she and her husband recently invested in the high-end skiwear brand, Perfect Moment.
“When it comes to my hair care line, Anomaly, the idea was to democratize beauty and make sure everybody gets great products that don’t make a hole in your wallet, or the environment. Those are things that were really important to me,” she said.
“With Max Factor, the brand is all about inclusivity, and it’s a legacy brand like Gloria Vanderbilt. I like to associate with brands that are pioneers in their field and leaders in their categories.”
For Perfect Moment, she said, the goal is to introduce the brand to a larger audience.
“The idea of an association with a public person is to be able to magnify what the brand stands for,” she said. “So that was the intent for our association as investors and advisers.”
The investment marks the first fashion brand the couple has invested in, although Nick Jonas has a tequila line with designer John Varvatos. Chopra Jonas said the idea of getting involved with Perfect Moment came from “the love of the brand. My husband is an avid snowboarder, I’m more of an après-ski kind of girl. I like wearing my winter wear and snowmobiling more than skiing. But for people who like adventure and sports and just being outdoors and in nature, this is a great brand. We decided to invest in it so that people who hadn’t heard of the brand will hear about it and we can be part of hopefully the upward trajectory for this company. And…that’s something I find really exciting to do in my businesses.”
Although she said there are no plans to invest in other fashion brands immediately, “creating, founding and associating with really interesting brands” remains “a big focus” for her. “And at the same time, I’m producing content for various mediums: TV, films, streaming, etc. But when it comes to fashion, never say never,” she said.
As a successful actress and wife of an equally well-known entertainer, Chopra Jonas is frequently in the public eye and works to “always be presentable and well turned out.”
Often, her uniform is blue jeans and a white shirt — an outfit that can be dressed up with a pair of heels, “some fun earrings and accessories” to go out to dinner, with a blazer for a business meeting, or just sneakers for running errands. “My personal style is comfortable,” she said.
But when she steps out on the red carpet, she ups the ante.
“I love red carpets because I think it’s really fun to collaborate with amazing people who are experts in their fields to create something that stands apart for a moment — that’s the beauty of a red-carpet outfit, you wear it for that one moment,” she said.
Although she didn’t single out any particular designer as a favorite, Chopra Jonas said whomever she chooses to wear, “I really have to feel comfortable and confident in whatever I’m wearing,” she said. “That goes across anything that I wear. They say clothes make the man-slash-woman, and whether it’s a red carpet or jeans and a T-shirt, I think you just have to feel your best in your outfit.”
Feeling her best is also something Chopra Jonas experiences during her work with UNICEF and the other causes she’s taken on in her life.
“As my mom used to tell me, no matter how badly off you are in your life, there’ll be somebody else that’s worse off than you. So remembering that, even in your bad times, makes you empathetic, and that empathy should permeate through everything you do,” she said. “That’s how I try to live my life — to try to be a good person all day, have great intentions, work with the best people and then give back to the community.”
Working with UNICEF, she said, has been “the greatest privilege of my life.”
“We’ve been associated for almost 15 years now. And just to be able to magnify the messaging of what UNICEF does for children around the world that are forgotten is honestly the best thing that I’ve ever had the ability to do. When I talk about causes that matter to me most, I think the future of children is something that has always been consistently an important part of my life because they are the future of the world. They are going to inherit the world from us. And we really have to think about the world we’re going to give our kids,” she said.
Beyond her philanthropic causes and business ventures, Chopra Jonas is also working on a couple of film projects. First up is a Sony Pictures project called “It’s All Coming Back to Me” with Sam Heughan and Celine Dion that will be coming out next year, she said. “It’s a really fun romantic comedy and Celine Dion’s first-ever acting role, which is exciting. And it’s just a super fun movie. It’s a Valentine’s Day release. It’s all about love and the things we all love about love.
“Then I have the exact opposite of that — a spy show with the Russo brothers for Amazon Prime with Richard Madden and Stanley Tucci. It’s called Citadel and it’s really going to be amazing. It was a lot of work. I have a lot of scars to prove it,” she continued, adding that she has “many other things in development as a producer and as an actor.”
But first up is the Gloria Vanderbilt campaign. Although Chopra Jonas is featured in the advertising and marketing materials, she didn’t have a hand in the design of the collection.
“There’s really not much that you can do for a brand that has catered to almost every need of every woman,” she said. “It’s inclusive of sizes. It’s inclusive of people. You never know what the future will hold, but I really don’t know what I have to contribute except my hips at this point.”
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