Natalia grew up in a poor area of Russia with her mother and two sisters one of which had Cerebral Palsy. To help support her family Natalia would sell fruit on the street. She knew that there was something that she had to do, so she enrolled in a modeling school at the age of 15. She was told that she had to learn English before she could do anything else. She learned it in 3 months and at the age of 17 she headed off to Paris and signed with Viva Model Management.
Her career sky rocketed. In 2001 she was on the cover of Teen Vogue and even opened the Yves Saint Laurent show in 2002. This was just after giving birth to her first son Lucas. Natalia has been on every magazine cover, in every campaign, and has walked for every major designer. Her covers include iD, Vogue, Italian Vogue, British Vogue, Japanese Numéro, V, and W. Just to name a few. Her campaign list goes on forever but some of her most predominant ones are Gucci, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, and most recently; YSL and Givenchy.
Recently she has begun to focus more on philanthropy. She was named Woman-Of-The-Year by Glamour Russia in 2005. Natalia also started her own charity called the Naked Heart Foundation that builds playgrounds for kids in urban areas of Russia. They built their first park in 2006 and since then have created 30 more. A mother of three kids, a humanitarian, and a top model; sounds like a triple threat to me...
Photo Credit- New York Magazine
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