[vested]

A long interview with Natalia from last year...

Four years ago Natalia Vodianova was a poor fruit seller on the streets of Moscow. Now she's one of the world's most in-demand models and married to a very rich, very handsome aristocrat. Luckily, says Susan Dominus, it's hard to hate her.

Natalia Vodianova, the 23-year-old model of choice among fashion heavies like Calvin Klein and Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue, is not a head-turner. As she enters Manhattan's Odeon restaurant, a loud, popular lunch spot where she is a regular, one is almost more inclined to admire the tall, striking hostess who seats Vodianova and her husband, Justin Portman, at their table. Vodianova's fair hair is tousled, her clothing casual, a smockish men's shirt from Marc Jacobs hanging loosely on her frame. Thin and medium-height, she simply doesn't take up that much space. Her hair is not bleached blonde enough to scream celebrity; her colouring is muted.

'We had a fun, trashy weekend,' she says, apologising for her fresh-from-bed, sleepy look. None of this, however, is to say Vodianova isn't beautiful: hers is a connoisseur's beauty, the kind that invites a longer look once it's captured the viewer's gaze. Her face is subtle and distinctive, with deep-set sapphire-blue eyes, tawny skin, a pouty mouth and a sweetly snub nose. And she definitely turned the heads of the connoisseurs who count: Vodianova had modelled for Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Jacobs before Calvin Klein signed her to an exclusive deal three years ago (she is also the international spokeswoman for L'Oréal, one of the more coveted modelling gigs). The American Vogue arbiter of chic Grace Coddington has predicted that Vodianova will 'stand out in model history'.

Full interview
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/m...06/stnat06.xml