Today Natalia celebrates her 28th birthday! We’d like to wish her the best on this very special day. Happy Birthday Natalia!
Indie Issue 11
Thanks to rolling from bellazon, I’ve added outtakes from Natalia’s shoot for Indie Magazine. Enjoy!
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Photoshoots > Magazine Prints & Outtakes > Indie Issue 11
From Russia with love: stars have a ball despite being soaked in rain
There was an outburst of “blinging in the rain” when guests at the charity Love Ball London were forced into the cold and wet last night when dry ice set off fire alarms at the Roundhouse in Camden.
Kate Moss, Elizabeth Hurley, Tracey Emin, film producer Harvey Weinstein, designer Anya Hindmarch and Jade Jagger were among dozens of guests who spent nearly half an hour in the freezing car park before the fire brigade gave the all-clear.
Many of the men removed their dinner jackets to warm the shoulders of their shivering companions.
But the rest of the evening, organised by Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova and Lucy Yeomans, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, was a success and raised £1.2million for Vodianova’s Naked Heart Foundation, which builds children’s play parks in deprived areas of Russia.
For the first time the charity will be funding parks in the UK with plans for play areas in deprived parts of London, Liverpool and Glasgow.
Others guests included fashion photographer Mario Testino, Bryan Ferry, Sir Peter Blake, Joely Richardson, Mary and Stella McCartney and model Liberty Ross.
Artist Dinos Chapman was the Love Ball’s creative director while all guests received Baboushka dolls designed by Blake.
The ball’s auction saw Blake’s silkscreen print I Love You top the bidding at £160,000, while the £135,000 fetched for Chapman’s work prompted Emin to declare: “That’s an absolute bargain.” Emin also auctioned her work along with artists Mark Quinn and Jeff Koons.
The highlight of the sale was a pink and white diamond necklace, designed by Vodianova and made by diamond experts De Beers, which sold for £180,000 to PR executive Matthew Freud, accompanied by his wife Elisabeth Murdoch.
The guests were entertained by singers Yusuf Islam, Leona Lewis, Sharleen Spiteri and Paloma Faith.
Source: London Evening Standard.
Love Ball London
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Appearances & Events > 2010 > Love Ball London – Arrivals
Appearances & Events > 2010 > Love Ball London – Inside & Performance
Natalia Vodianova previews De Beers’ Magic Moment Necklace
By way of preview, the Love Ball is a charity event benefiting the Naked Heart Foundation. The event features an auction, where The Magic Moment Necklace, designed by model Natalia Vodianova and created by de Beers, will be offered alongside art from Marc Quinn, Anselm Reyle and others.
The Magic Moment Necklace’s central pendant features a 1·1 ct fancy intense pink heart-shaped diamond paired with a 3·06 ct white heart-shaped diamond and hand-set in delicate micropavé. The pendant dances on a chain of white gold studded with white, pink and yellow diamonds (totalling 1·81 ct, 1·65 ct and 1·94 ct respectively); part of the chain is detachable for versatility. The Magic Moment Necklace can be worn either as an intricate statement or a sophisticated pendant, says De Beers.
Says Vodianova in a release, ‘The Magic Moment Necklace was inspired by that precious instant when two people meet and immediately connect. Two stunning De Beers diamond hearts fit perfectly together becoming one—symbolic of a great love. I was reminded of the famous love poem by Pushkin and of the first playground we opened when I saw the children’s happiness and excitement. That was a magic moment I treasure and I instantly knew that the Naked Heart Foundation would be an integral part of me.’
For further information about the Love Ball and the Naked Heart Foundation, visit www.nakedheart.org/loveball.
Source: Lucire Insider.
Finch & Partners Pre-BAFTA Party
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Appearances & Events > 2010 > Finch & Partners Pre-BAFTA Party
Photoshoot Update
Outtakes from Zoo have been added to the photoshoots gallery. Enjoy!
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Photoshoots > Magazine Prints & Outtakes > Zoo December 2009
Why it’s playtime for Natalia Vodianova
She looks like the girl who has it all, but supermodel Natalia Vodianova is still haunted by the poverty of her early life. Now she plans to build 500 playgrounds in her native Russia.
Although it’s 12 years since she left Russia, Natalia Vodianova still gets homesick, especially when she hears the language. “It’s odd because I even think in English now – though I sometimes dream in Russian, depending on who’s in the dream and what’s going on. But Russia has made me who I am: romantic, generous and a little melancholic.”
The 27-year-old model grew up in the grimly industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, in the sort of poverty that saw her single mother hold down four jobs while Vodianova raised her two sisters, one of whom, Oksana, has cerebral palsy. She was spotted at 15 by a model scout and taught herself English in just three months. She moved to Paris at 17, and by 22 she was a British Vogue cover star, married to property magnate Justin Portman and happily settled in the UK with their first-born, Lucas (who’s since been joined by siblings Neva and Viktor). At this point, when most of us would have settled back to enjoy life’s good fortune, Vodianova set up her own charity.
Unlike celebrities who blunder good-naturedly into complex political situations or try to solve global warming with a charity single, Vodianova’s Naked Heart Foundation has a simple and personal goal. Founded in response to the tragic Beslan school siege in 2004, the charity provides playgrounds for Russian children: 39 have been built so far, and the target is 500. “I see the importance of play in my own children and the lack of it in me,” Vodianova says. She estimates that, due to her family situation, her own childhood ended when she was six. “I would have loved somewhere to go when I was a little girl, somewhere I felt secure and that made me feel like a child. We adults have worries, but we forget that the little ones have them, too.”
