From Russia with love
May 25 2003
Picture: AFP
Natalia Vodianova: "I think about Russia all the time."
Take a classic fairy tale, mix it with a love story and you have Natalia Vodianova's life. From childhood poverty in Russia, she has emerged to become the face of Calvin Klein and the wife of an English aristocrat. By Catherine Wilson.
One night late last winter, Natalia Vodianova was at a nightclub in Nizhni Novgorod, the Russian industrial town where she grew up, a day's train ride from Moscow. Just after midnight she and her friends were drinking locally made vodka and watching the Mafia men of the region preying on the girls on the dancefloor, when suddenly in the dim light on the edge of the room a man loomed in front of Natalia, brandishing a knife, and attempting to slash her beautiful face. The naturally gentle curve of her cheek was saved by her bodyguards, who moved swiftly out of the shadows and held her attacker at bay. The face that is now the face of Calvin Klein worldwide was miraculously left untouched.
Incredibly, Natalia's assailant was not an anonymous drunk but an old friend. Someone she had grown up and gone to school with. Someone who was riven by jealousy that Natalia had escaped Nizhni Novgorod, and changed her life beyond her wildest dreams. "The people that live in my hometown do not walk along the street with smiles on their faces," says Natalia, sadly. "It is a desperate place, but I got out."
Natalia can only be described as the heroine of a fairytale. An old fashioned rags-to-riches story of how a young girl who once sold fruit and vegetables in a street market dreamed of becoming a model in the West. Of how she moved to Paris, then New York, and went on to win the biggest modelling contract in the world as the face of Calvin Klein. This is a contract that in the past has turned girls into legends Brooke Shields in the 1980s, Kate Moss in the '90s, and now Natalia Vodianova.
It is also a love story, a story of how she met and fell in love with Justin Portman, an English aristocrat, had his baby and married him last year in a lavish wedding in St Petersburg that lasted three days. Tom Ford made her dress in pale grey satin with silver thread. The guests, who came from Paris, London, New York and Nizhni Novgorod, were dazzled by the revelries, the highlight of which was a private performance by the stars of the Kirov Ballet held in the throne room of Peter the Great in the Peterhof Palace.
Oh! How magically the girl from Nizhni Novgorod's life has changed. And she is all of 20 years old.
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The first time I met Natalia Vodianova and Justin Portman they were in their suite in the Hotel Bristol in Paris, in a state of some disarray. It was the final day of the haute couture fashion shows. They had lost count of how many nights they had been in residence. "Is it seven or eight?" Natalia wondered aloud. A half-empty bottle of vodka and an ice bucket were lying on the dressing table, along with piles of books (several on chess, one of Justin's passions). Clothes lay all over the floor. Sweetly, they were trying to tidy up as I walked in. Justin ordered tea; they both chain-smoked as if they were on a late-night bender.
The night before Natalia had been photographed by Karl Lagerfeld. Until one in the morning. He had wanted to photograph her for months, so when he finally got his camera in front of her he was so bedazzled, he shot not one, but two sets of pictures.
Portman, 32, whose family owns 45 hectares of property north of Oxford Street and south of Regent's Park (an area that can easily leave you bankrupt if you play Monopoly), has an easy charm. "We had dinner plans last night, but, if Karl calls, who am I to argue
" his voice trailed off, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled at his wife.
Natalia has the face of a child, but those huge, deep-blue eyes are the eyes of a woman. As she holds your gaze, you feel that even though she is only 20, she has seen more of the sadness of life than you ever will. Recently Mario Testino told American Vogue that she has the eyes of "a lioness", and I know what he means. Dressed simply in a black dress inset with lace, and no make-up, she sits beside me and gently smiles as she begins to tell her life story. Her 13-month-old baby, Lucas, is asleep next door, his Russian nanny by his side. Justin sits beside her, and smiles at her as she talks in her low, deeply accented voice.
"When I remember my life in Russia it is in totally dark colours."
"When I remember my life in Russia it is in totally dark colours," she begins. "It is only four years since I left. Such a short time ago. I cannot believe that I lived that life. Sometimes, I am sure it was a nightmare. That I have woken up. But it was real. I lived in a very small apartment with two sisters, one of them is an invalid."
Natalia's mother had three daughters by three different fathers, and Natalia, the oldest, has never known her father. "There was my mother and the guy who lived with my mother at the time when I left. All the alcohol. All the beating her up." She pauses for a moment, and then continues. "I was always trying to protect her, always trying to survive. It was a very hard life."
Nizhni Novgorod, formerly known as Gorky, is Russia's third largest city. It sounds like a cold and bleak Soviet hellhole. Most of the population works in either the local car, chocolate or vodka factories. "It is very, very hardcore," says Justin, with some feeling. "You cannot possibly even imagine it unless you have been there. There is no law, the police mean nothing. It is kill or be killed. You are surprised it is actually functioning. People don't eat meat, it's a luxury," he adds, by way of illustration. "Everything is a big luxury," adds Natalia, with a thin smile.
As Natalia grew up, her mother stayed at home nursing her sister, working at night, with Natalia taking over the care of her two sisters, "my little darlings", Oxana and Kristina, when she came home from school. They were very poor. She says she ate soup most days, but often she would go for a week without eating. Every now and then, Natalia reaches out to Justin, and they constantly smoke each other's cigarettes as they talk.
When Natalia was 11, she began selling fruit and vegetables on the street to try to earn some extra money. She says her mother did not care if she went to school or not. As she talks she does not sound self-pitying or bitter. "I was really bad at school, not because I was stupid but because I didn't have time, as I was working instead of my mother. My mother would never check to see if I had been to school. When you are young if you get the chance to go and hang out with your friends and smoke cigarettes after working, rather than study, you will. But I knew that something would happen. That I would be all right. I was not going to live the same life that my mother did."
The only model Natalia had heard of then was Naomi Campbell; she saw her on television in a Michael Jackson video. Fashion magazines did not make their way to Nizhni Novgorod. Out of boredom she says she started going to the local theatre group, where they would read poetry and the classics. Luckily, she was there the day the model scout from Paris came to town. He had heard there were beautiful girls in Russia who would try their luck in the West. Three months later she was on a plane to Paris.
"I can tell you the exact date I left Russia, December 1, 1999," she says, laughing. "He told me to learn English, so I did. I had to. But I did not believe I was going anywhere, until my papers and the ticket arrived. Only then was I free to go."
Was she scared?
"No. I was determined. I had nothing no one to lose." She could not wait to work she says. She earned 500 francs ($A135) a week working for magazines such as German Elle, and felt rich. "I was so happy," says Natalia.
Oxana Martyukevich, 23, is Natalia's best friend. She is unmarried with an 18-month-old son, Kiril, and lives at home with her mother in Nizhni Novgorod. Natalia and Oxana still speak on the telephone every other day. They are godmother to each other's children. Their mothers were friends, and they grew up in the same block of flats. "I often hear people talking about Natalia and saying, come on, is it really her? How did it happen to her?" says Oxana. She says this always makes her laugh. "Of course, it's her who else could it be? It couldn't be any other way, I say. People envy her. I was there when the man tried to cut her face. I still can't believe it happened. I know how it must feel for people in the West too, to look at her and think, how did she do it? No one believes the paradox here either."
Justin Portman, the second son of the late Viscount Edward Portman, went to Harrow and then studied art. In 1997 he held a sellout exhibition at a gallery in London, and once famously organised a charity chess night at the Cobden Club with Garry Kasparov. Dressed in combats and a sweatshirt, he is relaxed and intelligent, and seems unlike many privileged men of his ilk.
Justin and Natalia met two and a half years ago in Paris, where Justin was living, at a rowdy dinner thrown by a model agent and mutual friend. He says he fell in love with Natalia instantly. "We had a big fight!" he says, roaring with laughter. "We were both drunk and shouted at each other all night. My best friend said I had found my wife!" The next day Justin managed to arrange to have a drink with her. "He came in and had these big eyes, and I melted," remembers Natalia, reaching out to hold Justin's hand. "He said he was sorry for behaving so badly the night before. I pretended I wasn't interested, but I was." Justin kept showing up in Paris, making any excuse he could to see her, and brought her home with him to his family estate, Clock Mill, in Herefordshire, for Christmas.
Justin admits their lives could hardly have been more different. "I had an easy childhood. I played sport, ran wild and never wanted for anything. But Natalia has taught me a lot. She doesn't lie. You know the typical English problem of being unable to say what you really feel? Well, she just says Stop it! You don't have time for f---ing around in Russia, you know'. I love that directness."
Eighteen months after they met, Lucas arrived. They take him with them everywhere now. "The most we have been apart is 10 days," she says. Six weeks after Lucas was born, Natalia was back on the catwalk.
On September 1 last year Lucas was christened and Justin and Natalia were married in St Petersburg.
It is the last day of the New York fashion shows and Justin appears from the couple's bedroom, looking bleary-eyed. He makes tea and we chat about the couple of weeks since we first met in Paris. He says he's a house-husband now, and is happy to follow Natalia around the world. "I do paint every now and then, but you have to be stable for it to really work. I am enjoying what she is doing. It is fun. We are hardly ever in one place. Paris, Milan, LA we go all over, and we hope to move to Monaco soon."
We are in their apartment in Tribeca, a vast, almost palatial, loft. Natalia emerges from the bedroom looking tired but ravishing in her pyjamas, scoops up Lucas and the family lie on the floor, playing with toys. It could be a billboard ad.
"She's beautiful and looks natural," Calvin Klein says later, when I ask why he chose Natalia to be the new face of his global brand. "I wanted our campaign to be softer, more feminine sexy. When I saw Natalia she just looked and felt right."
Later that day, I meet Natalia backstage at the Calvin Klein show. She is having her make-up done before her biggest show of the week. There is a window with a vast view of the New York skyline. Does it feel like home now when you look out there, I ask.
"No! And nor does Russia," she says, sadly. When she goes back to Nizhni Novgorod now, which she and Justin do three times a year, "It is very, very scary. I have to have bodyguards. I am scared for my family. My mother does not want to move from the area we have always lived in. It is dangerous. They could kidnap any of them. Compared to everyone else, we have so much money now."
Natalia has taken much of her Calvin Klein earnings home, and has bought an apartment for her mother, who is still only 39, and her invalid sister now has a full-time carer. But she wishes they would leave Nizhni Novgorod and move to a safer area in Russia. She says she has everything she could ever have dreamed of. "I have done it. I have everything I want. I have made enough money to secure my family and that is all I care about."
But there is a sadness there, as we stand in the bright lights, moments before the start of the Calvin Klein show. Natalia looks at me, with that level gaze and those huge blue eyes.
"I think about Russia all the time," she says. "I wish I could have changed it all. Not just for me."
-Telegraph
