Natalia Vodianova — supermodel / philanthropist with roots in the USSR
Natalia Mikhailovna Vodianova was born on 28 February 1982 in Gorky, the Soviet name of Nizhny Novgorod, in the Russian SFSR. She grew up in modest circumstances with her mother, Larisa Kusakina, and as a girl helped her mother at work and looked after her younger sister Oksana, who was born with cerebral palsy, while her mother worked long hours.
At seventeen, in 1999, she moved to Paris and signed with Viva Model Management, and her career rose quickly in the early 2000s. She became the face of Guerlain's Shalimar fragrance, and in 2003 signed an exclusive contract with Calvin Klein, a seven-figure agreement that she held for eight seasons; a decade later she became the face of the brand's Euphoria fragrance. In September 2004 Steven Meisel photographed her for the cover of American Vogue alongside Gisele Bündchen and Daria Werbowy, the leading models of the moment. She has worked with houses including Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney, and has also appeared in films. In New York she is represented by DNA Model Management, and in Paris, London and Barcelona by Viva.
In 2004, in response to the Beslan school siege, she founded the Naked Heart Foundation, which began by building playgrounds and play parks for children in Russian cities and later extended its work to supporting families raising children with special needs, in Russia and elsewhere; by one count it had built 158 playgrounds in 103 Russian cities, and she hosts fundraising events for it, among them during London Fashion Week, for which Calvin Klein's designer Francisco Costa has made dresses for her. She is a member of the board of Special Olympics International and in 2021 was appointed a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Population Fund, working on the health and rights of women and girls.
She was married to Justin Portman, a half-brother of the 10th Viscount Portman, whom she met at nineteen, from 2001 or 2002 until 2011, and in 2020 married the French businessman Antoine Arnault, son of Bernard Arnault of LVMH, at a civil ceremony in Paris. She lives in Paris.
"Moved to Paris in 1999, at seventeen, signing with Viva Model Management; lives in Paris."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia)
Born in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, in 1982, she grew up there helping her mother, including caring for a younger sister with cerebral palsy, before leaving for Paris at seventeen in 1999.
Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.