“I thought you had to be famous or live in New York City.” Grace Elizabeth said in 2018, about her state of surprise at finding herself a high-in-demand model. Also, she wasn’t really interested as a girl growing up in Lake City, Florida. “I wanted to play volleyball when I was a kid, and I wanted to be a boy, to mess around in the dirt.”

Noah’s mom morphed into quite the swan model before birthing him last February with husband with her husband, Nicolas Krause. “I think I was born to be a mom. Everything I have, I pour into him happily,” she says of Noah.“It’s so amazing to watch him discover the world for the first time. What may be ordinary to us is fascinating to him. We get to see it all over again, see the beauty in things,” Grace Elizabeth tells Adrienne Gaffney in ELLE US February 2022. .

Photographer Sølve Sundsbø [IG] is particularly gifted at capturing ethereal fashion stories imbued with Grace. Pls forgive the double entendre.

Anastasia Barbieri rounds out the ELLE US fashion story inner-circle, choosing floaty-fashion spring looks from Alaïa, Balenciaga, Burberry, Chloé, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Isabel Marant, Marni, Max Mara, Michael Kors Collection. Miu Miu, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, Prada, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and more. / Hair by Laurent Philippon; makeup by Stephane Marais

The pandemic gave Grace Elizabeth extra time to reflect after Noah was born, with fashion world being in a semi-shutdown. Thrilled with the birth of her new son, she had time to reflect on the woman she wanted to be.

Grace Elizabeth’s values were further honed by her beloved mother’s health crisis, diagnosed when the model made those original Florida tomboy comments to Vogue in 2018. Her mom went everywhere with her on the road until a terrible health diagnosis came her way.

When Grace Elizabeth returned to modeling, it was with a new focus: becoming an advocate for ovarian cancer awareness. She has raised funds, posted on her social media platforms, and completed walkathons for the disease. “I’ve seen her go through treatment, a short remission, back into treatment. I’ve seen what the cancer itself does to the body, what chemo does to the body and the mental state. It’s life-shattering,” the model says, adding that “it’s such an uncommon cancer that there’s not enough funding.”

Grace Elizabeth shares with Gaffney that she indeed suffers from new mom guilt, leaving Noah to work. But ELLE also gives us glimpses into a part of fashion world largely unseen to us.

She and her friend, photographer Zoey Grossman, who has twins, “are able to speak about postpartum struggles and what it’s like to become a new mom. Gigi [Hadid], Emily [Ratajkowski]—our children are around the same age,” she says. “We don’t have to beat around the bush and say, ‘Oh no, it’s wonderful.’ Because as wonderful as it is, as grateful as we are, it is very hard.”

See all the luxury labels fashion information and read the entire ELLE February Grace Elizabeth interview.