CANDICE SWANEPOEL has always been a sensitive soul, but motherhood has heightened those feelings of care and empathy to an almost unmanageable level. The upside of that is that the philanthropic causes that she has always supported – like the Every Mother Counts charity, which has partnered with Gap for its new Mama Said campaign, more of which later – have taken on new resonance for her. The downside? Movie night is now an unusual form of torture. “I can’t watch movies, or even commercials, where kids are in any kind of danger now,” she told us earnestly.
“The last two movies I watched were Lion and Mama, with Penelope Cruz, and I mean, just bawling on the couch. Oh my god, they are both so beautiful but you just won’t get through it.” The Mama Said campaign is directed by a fellow mother, Liv Tyler. She and Swanepoel share an agent and the model has long been told that she and Tyler will get on famously: “She’s so lovely. I think once you become a mum, it shifts, and you see everybody differently.”
Tyler also stars in the ad with her two youngest children, alongside other stars and their babies. Swanepoel is dipping her toe back in modelling waters six months after the birth of her son, having already appeared in a watery shoot for skincare brand Biotherm that the tabloids haunted the set of; the lurid “Post-Baby Body” headlines no doubt generating an eyeroll and little more from the laid back model. The Gap shoot, however, marked her first on-shoot experience with her son. “It was definitely a different dynamic on set to what I’m used to!” she laughed.
“He’s actually so good and I think we’ve taken so many pictures of him since he was born that he’s actually quite used to the camera. It was a definite shift because I was thinking about him instead of myself. It wasn’t long after I arrived back in New York so I hadn’t really seen anyone yet, so it was lovely to be back on set with other mums and babies. It was a fun thing for us to do, and I just loved the cause.” He was well behaved, she recalled, apart from a moment near the end when she woke him up for a sH๏τ: “He really does not do well when I mess with his nap schedule.
” The suggestion that she must have seen worse behaviour from models on set through the years is met with no more than a knowing giggle. The Gap campaign aims to celebrate “the joys and optimism of motherhood”; a subject which sees Swanepoel light up. “It’s all so new to me and I think, especially in the beginning, that everything is such a joy; you’re excited about every moment,” she said. “Becoming a mother makes the world feel so much better. Nothing can get me down. I just look at him and see him seeing the world for the first time, and it’s just such a pleasure to see it through his eyes. I’m loving being a mum and this new stage in my life. 
It’s always been about me, and my career, and it’s so nice to have this shift and put all my love and energy into something else.” Her little one may be as laid back as her, but Swanepoel does, like any mum, care about making his life as stress-free as possible, which is why she explained she has added a letter to his name, to spell it more closely to its phonetic sound. “It’s pronounced ‘Anacan’” she told us. “We’ve added the ‘n’ because the original spelling was Brazilian and doesn’t have the ‘n’ and it was a little confusing for everyone over here, and I didn’t want him to have issues, but he’ll still have his original name in Brazil.” Straddling two very different worlds – motherhood, which sees her mainly based in Brazil where her fiancé Herman Nicoli’s family are from and where she goes to recharge and relax; and modelling, which necessitates that she spends at least some of her time in New York – has always been difficult for Swanepoel. Growing up on a farm in South Africa, her connection to nature is palpable, and just a few weeks in the city see her needing to withdraw and be somewhere green; a longing that is only more poignant now she’s a mother.
“I mean, because I grew up in such a specific way and around so much extreme nature, I will always crave to give that to my son,” she said. “But, obviously my life is a lot different to what my parents had, so I know I have to work and continue my career and for that I have to be in the city. Definitely, we will make it an important part of our lives to travel and show him the beauty of nature. I spend a few weeks in the city and I still have to go. Somewhere! And now I have more of an excuse because of my son!” Fortunately, she has a group of friends around her who are also balancing these two areas of their lives. Fellow Victoria’s Secret Angels Lily Aldridge and Behati Prinsloo – and soon long-time friend Rosie Huntington-Whiteley – are also juggling modelling and motherhood; a support network that Swanepoel is grateful for. “Well last night at the Met Gala was really the first time I’ve seen them since I had my son, and you feel the same but different. Now that we’re all in the mama club,” she joked. “Lily always kind of explained to us, that: ‘You’re just going to meet your best friend.’ And now we can really relate. And soon Rosie too – oh my god, I can’t wait. Because we all travel so much, I just can’t wait to be together with my friends in a garden somewhere watching our babies play. That will just be such a beautiful moment for us.
” For now, at least, their friendship is played out as much in front of the cameras as in private moments, and the model is clearly still finding a middle ground between Kardashian-style fame and total privacy that sits comfortably with her. “Definitely before the red carpet at the Met I was a little more nervous than usual,” she admitted. “I’ve been out for a good few months and you don’t really deal with so much judgement. You know, when I’m working I’ll post things on Instagram and do public appearances and people always have comments – good and bad. And so, after becoming a mum, this is the first time that I’ve really put myself out there, so I was a little bit nervous, but it all went really well.
And, to be honest, after becoming a mum, you don’t really care about much else.” Despite the nature of the celebrity that she has found through modelling, particularly as an Angel, Swanepoel is almost unbelievably down to earth – and she holds the connection to causes that matter to her as a powerful reminder of how fortunate she is.
The Gap Mama Said campaign foregrounds the work of Every Mother Counts – a non-profit organisation dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for mothers across the world: a cause that is even more poignant for the model now. “Especially because I grew up in a rural part of Africa and have seen things first hand, I think I’ve always had a heightened sense of what’s going on in other parts of the world. 
The causes I’ve always been pᴀssionate about, now I’m even more so,” she told us. “I think it’s good for everyone to be aware that it’s not as easy everywhere in the world for people to have a safe delivery. I’ve always felt it was important for me to be able to look outside my own experience, and try to help in some way, even if it’s the tiniest little thing.
I really encourage people to enjoy the campaign and donate if they can, but even if they can’t just to take a moment to be aware of and sensitive to other people’s reality. Even from my own delivery, it’s such a scary situation and that’s in a place that we have comfort and hygiene, things that we don’t even think about – but many other people don’t have that.” You can donate at EveryMotherCounts.com