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Natalia Vodianova: An Unbelievable Rags to Riches Inspiring True Story
– Reported, January 31, 2013
Natalia Mikhailovna Vodianova is a Russian model, actress and philanthropist who resided in England from 2001 until 2012, and currently lives in Paris. In 2012, she came in 3rd on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $8.6 million in one year.
Born in Gorky, Soviet Union (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia), Natalia Vodianova grew up in a poor district of the city with her mother and two half sisters, one of whom has cerebral palsy. Vodianova’s father walked out on the family when she was a toddler, and she did not have any further contact with him until after she had become famous. She sold fruit on the street to help her mother, later setting up her own stall with a friend to earn money for her single-parent household where she was discovered by a modelling scout. She remembers “It was a tough but not a bleak life. I remember once finding a rouble on the street at a time when the average salary was perhaps 25 roubles a month; I grabbed it with a feeling of euphoria, ran back to my mother and was allowed to go shopping for food with it. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to do that for my family. From very early on, I had a strong sense of responsibility. I was lucky enough to have loving grandparents my mothers parents who were rock-solid, and I guess spoiled me a little bit, in a nonmaterial way. My grandmother is beautiful and very strong, and she took care of herself. Everything had to be perfect: she had bright red hair down to her hips that shed put in a huge chignon, and wore bright red lipstick. She had about three pairs of shoes that she polished and took great care of; shed save money to buy a pair of gloves and a little scarf, and had a box full of costume jewellery that I wasnt allowed to look inside till I was 15 or so. It definitely shaped my love of beautiful things, and also an awareness that they need to be taken care of”.
She further adds “In Russia most children with my younger sisters condition are sent to institutions because when you look after such a child at home the government provides so little support. The family also feels disabled: my mother couldnt work any more, and I couldnt go to school normally because often I had to babysit my sister, so we struggled. But my mother is such an inspiration to me: she lived her life by following her heart, rather than what she was being told was the right thing to do”.
By the age of 17, Natalia had moved to Paris and was starring in advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Chanel and Louis Vuitton. At 19, she was married to Justin Portman (heir to a family that owns large chunks of Central London) and had the first of her three children, Lucas, now 11. Neva, six, and Viktor, five, followed, and, as she concedes Ive done a lot already, but I still feel very young! With the break-up of her marriage in 2010, Natalia left behind homes in London, Herefordshire, West Sussex and Uruguay, but now lives with her new beau Antoine Arnault, son of billionaire LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, in Paris, where he runs the menswear line Berluti.
Add to Natalias CV lingerie designer (for Etam), Eurovision presenter, actress and, of course, exquisite face for Guerlain and, as she explains to me over a healthy grapefruit juice, it is quite a rags-to-riches story
At the age of 15, Vodianova enrolled in a modelling academy. By the age of 17, Vodianova had moved to Paris, and signed with Viva Models. Vodianova has achieved considerable success as a runway, editorial and advertising campaign model. To date, Vodianova has walked in more than 175 runway shows for U.S. and European based designers’ ready-to-wear and haute couture collections, has appeared in editorial spreads in fashion magazines worldwide and has completed advertising campaigns for Guerlain, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, L’Oréal, David Yurman, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Versace, Diane von Fürstenberg, Chanel, Guerlain, Etam and others.
In Spring 2009, Vodianova entered into a three-year agreement to be a brand ambassador for the French lingerie company Etam and will design a lingerie collection each season during the term of the agreement. The collections will be marketed under the brand Natalia pour Etam.
Vodianova was ranked 14th in the UK channel Five’s 2005 television programme World’s Greatest Supermodel. Forbes magazine estimates Vodianova earned $4.5 million (USD) between August 2006 and July 2007, $4.8 million (USD) between May 2007 and April 2008 and $5.5 million (USD) between June 2008 and June 2009, making her the seventh highest earning model worldwide during all three time periods.
In May 2009, Vodianova co-hosted the semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.
On 12 December 2009, she was designated an ambassador of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, becoming a face and key advocate of Russias first Winter Games. In 2010, she appeared at the Vancouver Olympic Closing Ceremony within that role.
In 2010, she was named in Tatlers top 10 best-dressed list.
In 2001, Vodianova made a brief appearance in Roman Coppolas film CQ with Billy Zane. In 2010, she portrayed Medusa in the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. In October 2010, Vodianova landed her first leading acting role in a film adaptation of Albert Cohen’s 1968 novel Belle du Seigneur, directed by Glenio Bonder and co-starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It is scheduled for release in 2012.
Vodianova is a founder and the president of the Naked Heart Foundation, a philanthropic organisation that strives to provide a safe and inspiring environment in which to play for every child living in urban Russia. She was inspired to found the charity after visiting Russia with her son Lucas and finding there were no suitable places for children to play. The organisation built its first play park in 2006 in Nizhny Novgorod. It has since built nearly 38 more.
Vodianova in Russia in 2008 at a press-conference for the Naked Heart Foundation
Vodianova also lends her support to a number of philanthropic causes, such as the (Bugaboo)RED campaign, an initiative to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. That same year, Vodianova became an ambassador for Hear the World, a global campaign that seeks to raise awareness of the topic of hearing and hearing loss and to promote good hearing all over the world.
She is also a spokeperson for the Tiger Trade Campaign, an alliance of 38 organisations united under the common aim “to bring back wild tigers by stopping trade in tiger parts and products from all sources.” In an interview supporting the campaign, Vodianova said: “I’m proud that Russia, my country, is home to the most magnificent of animals, the wild Siberian tiger. Today it is up to us to protect the tiger and its home, fewer than 350 Siberian tigers remain in the wild and no more than 3,400 tigers survive anywhere in the world. Unless we act now we will see the extinction of the wild tiger within our lifetime.”
In honour of her philanthropic achievements, Harper’s Bazaar awarded Vodianova the award for Inspiration of the Year in November 2010.
Vodianova met Justin Portman , half-brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, a British property heir, former artist and chess organizer at a Paris dinner in 2001. They married in November 2001 when she was 8 months pregnant. In September 2002, over nine months after registering the marriage in the UK, they had a wedding ceremony in St. Petersburg, where Vodianova wore a dress designed by Tom Ford. The couple have three children: sons Lucas Alexander (born 22 December 2001) and Viktor (born 13 September 2007), and daughter Neva (born 24 March 2006). Viktor is named after Vodianova’s grandfather, who had helped raise her after her father’s departure. Neva is named after the Russian river Neva.
Separated from February 2010, Vodianova and Portman announced their final separation in June 2011. She is currently in a relationship with Antoine Arnault, son of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and the CEO of luxury brand Berluti. The couple live together in Paris with her three children.