...you mean that ISN"T Moby?

I'm so embarrassed.

Ouch!!!!!!!!!

Well, as I say, Justin Portman is a multi-millionaire, so maybe that makes up for the lack of "social polish" (I presume by that, you really mean "hair").

For anyone too impatient for Patrick's scans of the editorial, there are nine tiny images of it in a style.com slideshow here:

www.style.com

"(I presume by that, you really mean 'hair')"...

LOL! :) And not to be picky, but pinkmoon said media polish, not social polish ;-)

Erin Wasson's husband is a painter too. It does indeed seem to be the trend.

Well, that's the surface and not the truth.

1st. Is Justin Portman really that rich and important? I doubt it. I know that in Europe there are lots of arostocrats that are dirt poor.

2nd. Do you really believe Natalia is a very simple-minded Cinderela? Just looks at the backstage pictures; she flirted very hard with all the male designers. In some pictures in one isure of W, you can see how Oscar De La Rena's wife and her friends disliked Natalia. And Natalia smiled in a way like a little slave and tried to plase them.
Well, she is a gril flirting with all the designers and the designer's wife really don't like her.

3rd. Do you think their marriage is a perfect one? What they can talk? Natalia's life is a very rough one. She didn't receive much education and began working at an age of 12. Do you think she have the kind of academic ability to talk about Mozart or Van Gogh?
In the Vogue editorial, they look very depressed and their family life is a bore!

BTW, Natalia is my favoriate model and she has the most beautiful and sweetest face I have ever seen. BUT, I never think a heavenly creature equals a saint. AND I really don't like the way media show a fake truth.

The Portman family own a lot of property in London, so they are quite wealthy. It's only the aristos without a home that are the poor ones.

Natalia is entitled to work hard at her career, and we can see the results for ourselves, with constant editorial appearances, a CK contract - and now a rumoured US Vogue cover to come soon.

But yes, there is a tendency to sell a fairytale alongside each model, when her pictures should really speak for herself. The agency PR for Israeli model Havi Mond made her sound more like an immigrant desperate for rescue, than a pretty girl who has everything she needs for a successful career in her own right. Other models needed no such dramatic introduction despite the troubles of their respective countries, because their pictures were allowed to speak for themselves. Hyping up her country's problems may not do Havi's career any good, and if she's a good enough model, she doesn't need a "story" to sell herself to clients.

I've heard that Natalia's early "story" bears no resemblance to the truth. Selling fruit in a market? Do they think we all read Hans Andersen before bedtime? Notice how quiet she keeps the story behind these "Turkish" pictures...

girls.netevi.net

Agree on everything, tigerrouge, but I don't think those pics show Natalia. It's natural that a star will have this kind of lookalike spin-off, think of all the "Cindy Crawford oral sex exclusives!" banners that floated around five years ago. And yet, of course, young striking beauties rarely sell fruits in a market.
For the record, I've heard Havi Mond is a British citizen (her parents are British), and that's how she got her working permit here in Paris (EEU rules), so she is no immigrant at all. I think the Telegraph prefered this angle to the usual model story.

I have seen those pictures before. She was 12 years then. She didn't have to sell fruit on the streets of Russian with such a face. But it seems a very sad childhood.

There was a long discussion on the fashist forum a while back about Natalia's early days, and her initial attempts at modelling in Turkey - and those are genuine photos of the girl herself, taken from a few years ago. It's not uncommon for people to try their luck in such countries, although it's not spoken of when their careers become successful - for instance, Geri Halliwell from the Spice Girls spent some time in Turkey, hostessing on a TV show, during her modelling days (*cough*).

And it turns out that the agency's "story" about Natalia has taken many twists and turns before settling down into the version that's sold today - so far, she's been born in two different places.

Although I don't mean to sound such a critic, I'd like to see what US Vogue comes up with if they give her a cover, and her editorial in the December Vogue Italia was interesting. It's just that, these days, someone's success inevitably brings hype that overshadows the work they do. And this is what is happening with Natalia.

well, maybe she wasn't actually selling fruits in a market, but I don't think she prospered in Nizhnii Novgorod (the architecture of this town is beautiful, but economic-wise it's pretty much a shithole)

hopefully it was modelling that she did in Turkey... because Russian women (+ ones from other former Soviet republics) often go to Turkey to work as prostitutes or strip dancers.

Crystalrose: "She didn't have to sell fruit on the streets of Russian with such a face." ----- True, she's got pretty + unusual looks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that, so to speak, "the doors were open to her".

I think it's naive to say just because someone's got a beautiful face that they are immediately catapulted out of poverty and into something better. I'm sure there are many beautiful people starving right alongside their countrymen in certain places. At best, maybe a pretty face gets you a job as a prostitute in most cases. A big career in modeling is a one in a million chance -- if that.

All these debates about cute face ugly face young face model business...
We all heard the story Portman needed the lady of the night in Paris and Natalia or Natasha from Russia more like was availabe...through the pimp of course, the rest is history we all know the peasant got pregnant threatened to sue and make public so our poor British Gentleman had to do his duty even though she was the Russian hooker!

What really amazes me is the Vogue magazine creativity - feed the public with the biggest bullshit we've ever heard. Now, as for Turkey I agree the Russian hookers are everywhere in the world - Paris, Istanbul, Ankara, Dubai, Riyadh, etc. the only place they haven't reached is the cold one further to the south of the African continent!!!

Lastly, I feel sorry for the Portman family what an uneducated scraffy load of shit dropped on their shoulders!

I'm italian ,and can't speak really well English ...anyway I'll try !Sorry in advance for numerous mistakes.
First ,Sultana - you are so angry that I'm afraid about your helth :-).
About your nervous system.
I've honour to see Natalia personally -and also now in my head I remember yout divine face and smile ,and also I saw how gentle and incredebly aristocratic (yes!) were her moviments ...If she was "normal" girl... ok may be... I'll agree with some point of your message.But not about Natalia!
Mr. Portman is a lucky man.
It's all.