Five-star Supernova: inside the world of supermodel Natalia Vodianova →

From poverty to top supermodel, marriage to an aristocrat and a new relationship with the heir to the LVMH fortune, Natalia’s life is one hell of a rags-to-riches fairy tale. Here she talks about the birth of her fifth baby and why she is as much in demand as ever

Outside the flagship Guerlain boutique in Paris, the atmosphere is nervous because of the current heightened security situation. In fact, all along the Champs-Elysées, people are jumpy. Inside, however, it’s a world of serenity, and the Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova is calmness personified. Just five months after the birth of her fifth child, she is pencil-slim and has a wide, friendly smile and soft, intelligent blue eyes. Her sparkle and natural warmth make it immediately evident why people respond to her so well, and why the camera loves her.

The story of how Natalia rose to become the face of one of the world’s leading perfume houses is certainly compelling. She was born into poverty in Nizhny Novgorod, a Russian city then called Gorky, but her father left before she was two years old. 

Stability from a paternal figure was not forthcoming; her stepdad walked out on her mother Larisa when their daughter, Natalia’s half-sister Oksana, now in her late 20s, was born with cerebral palsy and later diagnosed with severe autism.

As Larisa struggled to support her children – she also has a third daughter, Kristina – she set up an illegal fruit stall. The young Natalia (then just 11) started to skip school and worked 12-hour days in below-freezing temperatures with her mother. And when she wasn’t doing that, she would help care for Oksana at home.

Her life changed dramatically at the age of 17 when a model scout encouraged her to go to Moscow, where she signed to an agency. Soon she was on a plane to Paris, from where she became one of the best-known models in the world, with campaigns for brands including Calvin Klein and Diane von Furstenberg.

At 19, she married the British aristocrat Justin Portman and had three children – Lucas, now 14, daughter Neva, ten, and Viktor, nine – before the couple split in 2010.

Shortly after, Natalia was spotted on holiday with Antoine Arnault, CEO of Berluti and chairman of Loro Piana – and also the son of Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, the company that owns Guerlain. The couple now have two sons together – Maxim, two, and Roman, five months – and the family live in Paris.

‘My children are my priority; I fit everything around their schedules,’ Natalia explains. ‘When I’m not travelling, I work from home and as a couple we rarely go out unless it’s for work, but we come back as soon as possible. Otherwise we always have dinner at home with the children.’

What do you eat? ‘Some French food, some Russian food, but also Häagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche which we all love.’ As if the weakness for ice cream weren’t enough, her wide eyes get even bigger with her latest discovery to satisfy her sweet tooth: ‘I have recently found this brand of chocolate from Beirut called Patchi – it’s crazy delicious!’ 

Natalia models her new Holiday Make-up Collection with a helping hand from Guerlain creative director Olivier Echaudemaison

Natalia is the first to admit that having five children is a challenge. ‘Each pregnancy gets more difficult; it’s long and every time the body is giving up a little more. But afterwards you feel so much better straight away and having a baby is very good for your skin and organs, apparently – although of course my back has weakened. I can’t wear heels so much any more,’ she says with a mock grimace.

Apart from her family, her other great passion is her charity, the Naked Heart Foundation, which raises money to build playgrounds across Russia that are suitable for all children, whatever their abilities. Its remit is to encourage children – whether disabled or not – to play together and tackle the stigma of disability in her homeland.

However, there is a long way to go: just last year, Oksana was asked to leave a café in Nizhny Novgorod, with its owners allegedly telling her carer that Oksana’s presence was ‘scaring’ other customers. Natalia was very vocal in her criticism and received a lot of support from Russians and others alike. If anything positive can be taken from the incident, it is that awareness was raised further for the cause.

With headquarters for the Naked Heart Foundation in London as well as Moscow, Natalia visits the UK regularly. Is there anything she misses from her time living in London and West Sussex? ‘I made some really strong friendships in London and I miss the countryside; to me the whole of England seems like a big park.’

Today’s event in Paris is all about love: the room where we meet is decorated in Indian style, scented and inspired by Shalimar, the iconic oriental fragrance created in 1925, conjured up around the legendary love story of Emperor Shah Jahan. Four centuries ago, the emperor fell hopelessly in love with Princess Mumtaz Mahal and created the Gardens of Shalimar for her, as well as dedicating the Taj Mahal to her memory after she died.

Natalia, 34, has been the face of the fragrance for eight years and has given new life to the scent – today a bottle of Shalimar is sold every minute. Yet given the impact that Guerlain has had on her own life, professional and personal (it is through this association that she met her partner Antoine), it is with refreshing honesty that she volunteers she really wasn’t aware of the brand before she was approached to represent – indeed, personify – its flagship scent.

‘I was living in New York at the height of my career,’ she says modestly (she is still at the height of her career, many would argue). ‘I was very busy, and one day my French agent called and said, “There is interest from Guerlain!” And I just said, “OK.”’ She laughs, because she simply didn’t know much about the famous perfume house.

‘I was in Paris for Fashion Week and I have a lot of friends in the city because I lived there at one point. I met up with them and they said, “How’s things? Blah blah blah…” [even this sounds enticing in her Russian/French/English accent]. I said, “Oh, I might be the face of this brand – it’s French, apparently, and they have this perfume called Shalimar.” They were gasping, saying they had worn it when they were 15 and first kissed a boy, explaining how iconic it is. That was how I discovered its magic.’

Today, however, Natalia is extending her remit beyond ‘face of’ to ‘brains behind’ for her first foray into make-up design, on which she has collaborated with creative director Olivier Echaudemaison. Fun – along with hard graft – was the order of the collaboration that took more than a year to bring to fruition. 

‘We were like two kids playing with colours and textures,’ she explains. ‘Of course, I was more of a kid as Olivier has done this for many years, but I think he must have lived it again through me because I was so excited. But I was also opinionated,’ she giggles. ‘Like when I begged him to make the lipstick more pink and he said, “But for us, the subtlety is important.” And I said, “Nooo, it’s Christmas, I want a lot of pigment – make it more pink!”’

The range is, as one might expect, beautiful. ‘We wanted to create the feeling of preciousness and luxury, of course, but what was amazing to see was how the technical team really took on board my brief about trips I had taken to India and the different things about the country that had engaged me,’ says Natalia. The Rouge G lipstick in Rouge Saphir, for example, ‘contains real ruby powder, which is why it has such a deep pigment; it reminds me of a bindi. The Felt Eyeliner in Sparkling Gold is inspired by mosaics in Indian palaces, and for the Météorites Perles de Legende – light-reflecting pearls of powder in blue, gold and pink – the balls contain diamond powder and one secret ingredient which Olivier refuses to reveal, even to me…’

She credits Super Aqua Set with keeping her skin in tip-top condition – along with beetroot. ‘Beetroot is full of antioxidants and also it’s good for your blood. It is a very Russian thing.’

Natalia with her children Neva, Viktor and Lucas

Is there such a thing as a typical day in the life of Natalia Supernova, as she has been nicknamed? ‘Not really, because I have so much going on all the time. But when I am in Paris I get up at 7am, get my children ready for school and I’m there when they get home in the afternoon. I fit meetings in between those times.’

Christmas will be spent in the sunshine, just her, Antoine and the five children, ‘probably in Los Angeles; I love LA,’ she says, before admitting there is another motive for visiting California. ‘I am building a tech project in San Francisco, so it’s a good place to be,’ she says with a laugh which concedes that building a new charity app is not what most of us do over the Christmas holidays.

But sitting in front of this extraordinary woman, I am inspired enough to start wondering – well, why on earth not?