Main Image Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
When you look at Valeria Lipovetsky, you cannot believe that this beautiful young woman is a mother of three, loving wife, caring daughter, fashion model, registered nutritionist, 200M+ YouTube star, and a prominent business lady.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
It amazes me how Valeria can play so many different roles in life simultaneously and in harmony. She is like a wonder of wooden Russian Matryoshka dolls: you see one brightly painted doll; then you open it up in the middle and, surprise, there is another one inside; again, you open that second one up and discover the third doll placed inside it, and so on. It’s a set of dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another which often have the same faces. The only difference is that Valeria stands equally high in each and every one of her roles.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
“I am a mother, model, holistic nutritionist and a creative spirit who is just trying to balance it all one day at a time.” ~ It’s what Valeria Lipovetsky says about her, and I think the secret of her overwhelming success is in the words “one day at a time.”
Valeria – What the Name Means
Valeria is a female given name of Italian origin dating back to the Latin verb valere, meaning strong and brave.
Is your name your destiny or is your destiny your name? The idea that our names are intertwined with our destinies goes back millennia and nobody knows the answer yet.
Is that just a coincidence that a baby-girl was named Valeria and grew up as a strong and brave woman? Who knows?
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Anyway, this small poem by Val Vik of January 2016 sounds like it was written for Valeria Lipovetsky:
- Valerie! She’s a beautiful soul
- With the mind of her own
- She can make a blind man see
- The warm colors of her energy
- She can make a deaf man hear
- Rhythm, vibrations around her
Valeria Lipovetsky YouTube Channel
“I knew nothing but was afraid of nothing.”
Valeria Lipovetsky created her YouTube channel on December 1, 2013, and posted the first video on March 21, 2016.
At the beginning, three things were of Valeria’s concern:
- She had no idea on how YouTube worked and how to make and edit a video.
- She had to go out of her comfort zone, her familiar environment.
- She was good but not perfect at English.
In fact, almost everything Valeria needed to know she learned from the Internet and started shooting her videos with her phone at her home’s kitchen.
For a while, Valeria was working alone and then a few more persons started helping her. In 18 months her YouTube channel hit 33M and then the number of viewers began to grow exponentially.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
In her interview to the Beyond Fashion Magazine Valeria Lipovetsky says:
“I’m not really an expert – and I don’t want to be an expert – but I really want to be just like a friend or a big sister, or someone that my audience can go to when they feel like they need some help.”
Valeria Lipovetsky Social Media Accounts
- Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky/
- Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog/
- Pinterest – https://www.pinterest.ca/valeriainc/
- Twitter – https://twitter.com/VLipovetsky
Becoming an Influencer
There’s something about Valeria that makes millions like her so much. I think it’s because how natural and sincere she is. She seems really genuine and emotional. She doesn’t imitate anybody and doesn’t want to be like someone else. Valeria doesn’t try to teach you or tell you what to do, she just tells her own story. It looks like she has the ancient wisdom of a Chinese philosopher in her genes.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Valeria Lipovetsky before Fame
First Immigration – Israel
It is very difficult for those who did not live in the Soviet Union and who did not experience all the hardships of its collapse to imagine the situation that forced people to immigrate. Therefore, I want to make a digression and talk about the time when Victoria Lipovetsky was born and why her family immigrated to Israel.
Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union
Perestroika (literal meaning: restructuring) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, which is widely associated with Mikhail Gorbachev. It began a slow process of democratization that eventually destabilized communist control and contributed to the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991.
Social inequality and scarcity
It was an incredibly difficult period of instability when all the huge state assets were pumped into the private pockets of individuals who at that time held key positions. The “shadow economy” led to the emergence of the first wealthy people in the country and unsecured money flooded the market. Many large and small industrial plants either ceased to exist, or their capacity became significantly less than in the Soviet period. The standard of living began to fall dramatically, and a crime rate skyrocketed. Soviet citizens first encountered empty store shelves and long queues for food became commonplace in everyday life. For many, the main means of putting food on the table was to labour in their garden plot – “dacha” – a piece of land of about 0.67 acres. Millions of ordinary people on the 1/6 part of the entire Earth surface were in constant stress trying to survive.
Cherkessk in the eighties-nineties – Valeria’s birthplace
At the time of Valeria’s birth on September 19, 1990, her city, Cherkessk (Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Russia) was in absolute chaos. It is a multinational city geographically located in the North Caucasus region of Southern Russia.
Karachay-Cherkessia is one of Russia’s ethnic republics, primarily representing the indigenous Karachay and Cherkess people, which form the largest ethnic group of the population, followed by ethnic Russians. In numerical terms, not one of the ethnic groups forms an absolute majority (now, this republic has five official languages). Over 60% of the population adheres to Islam, and about 15% to the Russian Orthodox Church.
Therefore, the situation boiled down to the coordination of the interests of different ethnic groups, the fight between them for significant posts, economic assets, and so on. Public unrest, armed conflicts, jihadist attacks, terrorism, and criminal activities were normal. There were no large industrial plants; and agriculture, although it existed, did not bring significant income.
Out of desperation, both Russians and Karachays were aimed at finding jobs outside their homeland. If they could manage to immigrate, they had to go to an absolutely unfamiliar country with nothing. No secure funds, no valuable jewellery, no antiques …
Now, my digression is over and we are going back to Valeria’s early years.
Coming to Israel
With a few suitcases, Valeria’s family came to Israel: Valeria was 2 years old, and her mom was 21. They had nobody there, neither relatives nor friends, and only the governmental support helped them survive at first and adapt to a new life.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Becoming a model
At school, Valeria Efanova (her last name before marriage) was very shy and sometimes felt invisible, like in Amos Heart’s song from Chicago:
- “Cellophane shoulda been my name
- ’cause you can look right through me
- Walk right by me and never know I’m there”
She never dreamt to be a model; what she wanted was a job at McDonald’s. But “you never know”…In fact, her mom probably “knew” that her daughter would become something else than a McDonald’s girl, that things would turn out in a different way.
For Valeria’s bat mitzvah party her mom invited a photographer to take pictures of her sweetheart on that memorable day. And all of a sudden, on those photos was another Valeria, a confident, charismatic and beautiful girl. At the end of the day, mother and daughter got a deal: Valeria would try modeling and if it wasn’t going to work out, then she could go for a job at McDonald’s.
Developing her career in the modelling sea
Valeria was pushed in the modelling sea without safety equipment, but she didn’t sink, she started swimming.
It began when Valeria was 15. At the time, she and her family were still in Israel.
She worked for big brands such as Forever21, NastyGal, Bloomingdales, and lived in Barcelona, Paris, Tokyo, and New York. Sometimes, job breaks and money shortage happened, for instance in Japan in 2009, where the other modelling girls shared with Valeria their food and shelter.
I ask myself: at that tender age, would I be brave enough to leave my family and go to foreign countries just by myself? Maybe. Maybe not.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Nose Job
At the beginning of her modelling career, when she was about 16, Valeria got her nose job. Although, she looked beautiful with her natural nose, she decided to do the job for her own reasons.
Does it matter now? No. What is done is done.
Valeria Lipovetsky – Rise to Fame
Second Immigration – Canada
At age 19, Valeria Efanova immigrated to Canada with her family.
Marriage to Gary Lipovetsky
Valeria met Gary Lipovetsky at a party in Toronto when she was 19 and he was 37. At that time, she was living in New York and came to Canada for a visit. At the party Gary told her “you gonna be my wife” but Valeria didn’t listen: male attention had never been of short demand.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
However, Gary felt absolutely different –“that girl’s gonna make me fall.” And she actually did: every weekend Gary showed up in New York.
From Valeria’s side, love was developing gradually. But once Virgo finds true love, they are faithful to the core.
Their wedding took place in 2012.
They have three sons: Benjamin, Jake and Maximus
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
… I saw them together in real life, not on video. I’ve heard how Valeria pronounced his name and looked at him … Love was in the air and it couldn’t be staged. And what I’m also sure about is that Valeria always has Gary and her kids on the top of her mind.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
“I come first.”
“You can like the life you’re living. You can live the life you like.” (Roxie’s song from Chicago).
Valeria lives the life she likes. She shares her passion for self-love and doesn’t allow anybody to tell her what to do or say.
This excerption from her interview to the Beyond Fashion Magazine accurately pinpoints her life credo:
“This is something I made sure to voice to my husband from the get-go. I’m very much a person who knows her limits. I can feel when I need time for myself, and I demand it. I know that moms are so hard on themselves, and there’s this whole idea that you have to be a busy mom. But I just constantly remind myself that if my kids see me happy and healthy, they’ll have something to follow. So I don’t believe in over-doing it or over-stretching yourself. I come first.”
Valeria’s Fashion Favorites
Denim – no matter fall or spring. A coat, black turtle neck, jeans, and combat boots in the winter time. The sweatpants and sneakers when the weather is warm … and comfort all year round. But shoes and bags are her real passion.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Privileged Wealthy Life
Valeria’s husband, Gary Lipovetsky, is a self-made multi-millionaire. He is a hard worker and an embodiment of the American dream. Valeria is also from a very modest family and also has been working very hard to get to that point where she is now. And it is very inspirational to see that if they can do it you can do it too.
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Since her wedding day, she has been living a privileged wealthy life having nannies and all imaginable domestic help. She cooks when she wants, not when she has to … and many other small and big things. If she needs help with her business, she can get it any time. It’s incomparably easier for her than for other working women and moms to focus on what they are doing. But it’s not her fault, it’s her luck.
Valeria Lipovetsky Personality
As a quintessential Virgo, Valeria is intelligent and creative, analytical and hardworking, artistic and observant, kind and modest. She is a perfectionist at heart that isn’t afraid of any challenges to reach the highest point. This perfectionism drives her to great achievements, fame and success which others can only dream of. She knows that hard work pays off most of the time. But Valeria also realizes that our beauty exists within our imperfections, and our flaws are not defects.
The Mom Tag
From Valeria’s blog:
“Since I remember myself I have always been intrigued by women. My mother was the first woman I thought was the most beautiful, smart and strong character I have ever seen (I still do!).
I loved when she would let me sit and watch her put on her make up or teach me how a woman should dress to different events. My favourite was when I could sit with her and her friends while they talked about different things like their careers, relationships and future plans.”
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Valeria’s Mom Story
Valeria Lipovetsky is of Jewish-Russian background. She can speak Russian, Hebrew, and English.
Her mother, Victoria, was a popular singer both in Russia and Israel.
She got married at 18 and got Valeria at 19. Valeria says she was 8 months old when her father cheated on her mother. Victoria could not keep up with it and they separated. Since then, Valeria did not have any contact with her biological father and he never played any role in her upbringing. After many years, they met in 2017, when Lipovetsky family visited their homeland.
So, with two children and no husband, Victoria went through two immigrations having the entire load of it on her shoulders. Isn’t it brave?! That’s why I’m not surprised to see the same features in Valeria’s personality.
Today, Victoria is the co-owner of the Elite Grande restaurant in Toronto, Canada.
In 2017, Victoria married her second husband and the video about the wedding My Mother’s BIG FAT Russian Wedding has become one of the most popular on Valeria’s YouTube channel.
Mom’s Influence
Like many other moms, Victoria has been her daughter’s life great influencer, just to mention a few milestones:
- Two immigrations.
- Valeria’s mom was behind her modelling career: if not her, we would probably never know about Valeria.
- Before marriage, Gary Lipovetsky had to pass the “mom’s” test and get her approval. I don’t say that without it Valeria wouldn’t marry Gary, but the opinion of her mom was of the utmost importance for her.
Valeria Inc.
Valeria Inc. was founded in 2017 by Gary Lipovetsky and Valeria Lipovetsky. The company is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In the press release the company published in March 2020 on the PRNewswire website, it is said:
“Valeria Inc., the first influencer media company of its kind specializing in brand building and e-commerce. …Last year we grew our audience over 45% on both Instagram and YouTube, launched our first product line Leia, and established partnerships with global brands.”
Valeria Inc. is expanding its global presence through products, media, and partnerships that resonate with their growing audience.
By Natalia Grytsan, PhD
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
Source: Valeria Lipovetsky via Instagram
