Smart Sensuality Women Helena Christensen and Ali Hewson Pursue Edun's Activist Agenda

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Once again the Wall Street Journal gives us a Smart Sensuality story, this time tying the knot between Helena Christensen and Ali Hewson, married to Paul Hewson, aka Bono, and their fair trade, eco-friendly clothing line Edun, now funded in a big way by LVMH by previously-featured in WSJ Magazine Bernard Arnault. Whew!

Unintentionally, we’ve tracked each of these stories, which now come together with Smart Sensuality women Helena Christensen and Ali Hewson as good friends, and both wearing Edun.

I had the pleasure of working with Helena Christensen when she was a Victoria’s Secret model in the first two VS fashion shows. My thrill then is an even bigger one now, discovering that Christensen’s involved in the exciting Edun brand, as unofficial brand ambassador, photographer and model.

The premise of Edun should excite all of us, as it does the Wall Street Journal.

A look from Edun 2009, via WSJThe whole point of the Edun endeavor, Hewson says, is to make a profit — not because the executive board needs the money but to demonstrate to other entrepreneurs that it’s possible to do so in developing countries, paying fair wages and relying on local raw material entirely processed and manufactured by local labor, from start to finish. “We’re a tiny company, but we punch above our weight,” Hewson says. “And we don’t let Bono near the clothes.”

The evolution of Helena Christensen is a perfect Smart Sensuality story.

The Cultural Creative artist in her is expressed in her photography work. Her photos of actors such as Sean Penn, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck that launched Edun’s “One” campaign, a sale of T-shirts funding AIDS relief to Lesotho, Africa.

Her Modern roots as a fashion model and her ongoing relationship with style meld with her Cultural Creative values, to create this Smart Sensuality masterpiece muse of a woman.

Helena donated the profits of her recent photo exhibit at the Dactyl gallery in Soho to the Chernobyl project. At 40, Christensen is a bona fide Yummy Mummy. (We’ll pick up her sexy side over at Sexy Futures, WOT: Women Over 30).

Describing Helena Christensen, her friend Ali Hewson says: One of the reasons I like coming to New York is because I get to come to Helena’s after work at 6 o’clock, and I get a cup of tea, I get fed, I get talked to. She’s a one-woman show. She doesn’t even have a nanny. She’s able to organize her child, her private life, her business.

I don’t need to link the dots in these WSJ stories. Brains, beauty and sex appeal come together to drive Smart Sensuality women. Helena and Ali become our muses, but we must apply their lessons to our lives.

Talent, art, physical beauty, business, nurturing, volunteering, brains — all Smart Sensuality woman Michelle Obama words, too — come together in the friendship between these two women. (See 10 Reasons Why Michelle Obama Is A Smart Sensuality Woman.)

Bono, Ali Hewson and Helena Christensen in St. Barts, April 2009, via Marie ClaireIt’s almost too much to hope for that we could be moving out of pure philanthropy into a business model that grapples with the systemic problems of poverty around the globe. But I’m a tiny bit optimistic this morning, seeing just how deeply entrenched and horizontally widespread the Bono-inspired activism network really is.

Equally important, when a publication like the WSJ covers these stories over and over again, from multiple angles, it just may have some legs. Let us pray. Anne

Connecting the Anne of Carversville dots:

LVMH Backs Bono’s Edun and the Growing Power of Cultural Creative and Smart Sensuality Brands

For Global Luxury Brands: ‘Ethics is the New Elegance’

New from the Financial Times: Sustainable fashion: what does green mean? 2-5-2010

Ali Hewson, founder of Edun