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FAIRY TALE HELLO, CINDERELLA VEGGIE VENDOR TO SUPERMODEL
Date published: 3/19/2007
By ANATOLY KOROLEV RIA NOVOSTI MOSCOW--Natalia Vodianova, one of the world's top models, lives in New York. She is married to Justin Trevor Berkeley Portman, half brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, a lord born and bred, and a millionaire to boot. Therefore, her children--her son, Lucas, and baby daughter, Neva--indisputably belong to the British aristocracy. Unbelievably, this glamorous Russian lady was a provincial vegetable vendor seven years ago. Her unmarried mother had a hard time raising three daughters, one of whom had cerebral palsy. Being hungry, sometimes on the verge of starvation, was Natalia's lot in childhood and adolescence. When she turned 16, she weighed less than 110 pounds with a height of 5-feet-10. CHANGE OF FORTUNEA vegetable market in Nizhny Novgorod, on the Volga, was where the new Cinderella met her fairy godfather, if you will--a Viva model agency scout globetrotting in search of striking faces and figures. The Frenchman pretended to be a finicky customer, making her select the juiciest carrots and the crispiest cabbages. Natalia obligingly fumbled in a heap of vegetables in the pouring rain, arms bare to the shoulder, bravely smiling throughout her ordeal. She had no choice. The man from Paris saw that she was what he wanted, and asked her to come to the nearest Viva casting, in Moscow. Kate Moss, the Calvin Klein supermodel of the time, had no idea of her rival close at hand. Natalia was not the first Russian girl to make the West gasp. Aristocratic emigres of the 1920s brought with them a cult of the willowy line and languid pallor of exquisite femininity, epitomized in the fabulous dancer Anna Pavlova. Another Russian invasion of high fashion came 70 years later, when the Iron Curtain lifted. Natalia led a third Russian advance. She came to the Moscow casting--and caused a sensation, landing a job in Paris. Fluent English was the only proviso. She was given three months to acquire it. Dazzled by the promised salary, $400 a month--a fortune to her--she phoned home and said she would regularly transfer half of it to her mother. Three months later, she could speak decent English--and off to Paris! Barely 17, she was meticulous in sending the $200 to her mother and sisters.
Date published: 3/19/2007
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