MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Anatoly Korolev) – Natalia Vodianova, one of the world’s top ten models, currently lives in New York City.
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 a mere 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—something she took for granted. When she turned 16, she weighed less than 50 kilos with a height of 176 cm (five feet ten).
That was the garden in which the exotic orchid grew—a nymphet if there ever was one, in whose countenance delicacy blended with obstinacy.
A 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, her arms bare to the shoulder, bravely smiling throughout her ordeal. She had no choice—there was a bedridden sister to support.
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.
The rival was not the first Russian girl to make the West gasp. Aristocratic émigrés 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 seventy years later, when the Iron Curtain lifted. New Russians flooded London, Paris, New York and Milan—the world centers of couture. Leading this army of goddesses astride motorbikes, peculiar hybrids of virago and sex kitten, were Natasha Semanova, Olga Pantyushenkova and Lyudmila Isayeva. Alas, they all lacked the fragile charm of the Ideal Woman. These girls of steel had their careers nipped in the bud.
Natalia led a third Russian advance.
Never aware of her future, 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, which was a fortune to her, she phoned home and said she would regularly transfer half of it to her mother.
Cinderella did it. Three months later, she could speak decent English—and off to Paris! Barely seventeen, she was meticulous in sending the monthly $200 to her mother and sisters.
The childish pout, the huge, sullen blue eyes, the ideal body and teenager’s charm came as a thunderbolt to the world of haute couture. To top it all off, Natalia displayed rare diligence and meek patience, and so was a godsend. The magazine W referred to her as the star model of 2001.
Meanwhile, she was expecting her firstborn.
She met Portman at a party in Paris. Theirs was love at first sight. Not that the young lord was too eager for conjugal bliss—he had no idea the glamorous model would take on all his troubles and chores, letting him go on his flippant way.
She decided to have the baby. That was something of an agony—she was sure Justin would drop her like a hot coal. She revealed her guilty secret to him only after six months of pregnancy.
Her beloved turned out to be not so bad as she thought. They had their wedding in St. Petersburg. Lucas was born quite soon after, becoming the world’s most famous catwalk baby—loath to part with him even for an instant, Mommy always had him with her on the job. The little boy earned his fame—he was an adorable baby.
A mere month after delivery, Natalia V, as the media know Lady Portman, sat for a Louis Vuitton collection, and next for Gucci ads.
September 2002 found her the most in-demand New York Fashion Week model. Nineteen designers wanted her for their shows. Not that she was conscious of her glory—she was drudging away as she had in the vegetable market, always hungry and with nary a word of complaint.
Her career reached new heights after Kate Moss’ bungle. The star blurted out that she never started a day without a glass of champagne. Calvin Klein the puritan promptly sacked her, and offered Natalia the most lucrative contract in the company’s history.
Today, she ranks fourth on the world’s top model list and works for Gucci, Cerutti, L’Oreal, Louis Vuitton and other star houses. Another two Volga girls are standing by—Eugenia Volodina of Kazan, ranked 11th, and Anna Vyalitsina, 24th. Anna comes from Nizhny Novgorod, just like Natalia.
“The Portmans have never worked! Justin has no job, either. In fact, I am the first-ever moneymaking Portman wife,” she says.
Natalia gave her native city a gorgeous New Year gift—a children’s playground, complete with a two-deck boat, a pyramid, a cable railroad, roller-skating and skateboarding rinks, and soccer and basketball fields, plus a special ground for children with cerebral palsy.
The Portmans’ New York house is close to the scorched former site of the Twin Towers. The couple, and their unborn baby, escaped by a hair on September 11, 2001, ten days after their wedding.
The Cinderella of the Volga evidently has Lady Luck for a fairy godmother.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
