Natalia Vodianova got another major American magazine cover! She covers the November issue of Vogue just after scoring the September “Style Issue” of Vanity Fair. Natalia’s newish lover is certainly working out, isn’t he? She’s currently with Antoine Arnault, one of the owners/heirs to the massive LVMH fashion company. I’m not saying she’s a golddigger or anything like that. I’m just saying that she’s everywhere these days because her new partner is one of the most powerful men in fashion. Judge for yourselves! As for the (Annie Leibovitz-shot) cover: I hate it. I think Natalia is a beautiful, Bambi-like beauty but her “look” on this cover is too vulnerable and wounded. You can see the editorial here.
Interestingly enough, the cover profile isn’t even about Vodianova. She’s just a model posing as a ballerina for a cover story about Benjamin Millepied, also known as Mr. Natalie Portman. Millepied has been hired as the director of the Paris Opera Ballet at the Paris Opera House. I’ll admit it, I tried to read the piece this morning and my eyes crossed from all of the culture! Maybe I’m just not into ballet that much. You can read the piece here. The piece really is about Benjamin and what he’s going to do with the company and there’s barely anything about Natalie beyond a detail about how much she’s looking forward to moving to Paris full-time because of the privacy laws.
Here’s an awful photo of Natalia and Benjamin from the editorial. I’m not sure this cover editorial was really thought through. This issue of Vogue will be on stands on the 22nd.
Photos courtesy of Annie Leibovitz/VOGUE.
I’m going for both – blah AND gorgeous.
Natalia is stunning, obviously, but tbh I think she’s a rather boring model. She always has the same look – wide eyed Slavic sex kitten – with little of the versatility of truly great models like Linda Evangelista or Kate Moss. There are never any surprises with a Natalia Vodionova photoshoot.
Agree. She’s very pretty. So are most models.
Yeah, Natalia is gorgeous, but for me she’s interchangeable with any number of doe-eyed blonde Russian models. I don’t really understand how she got to be such a major star in the modelling world. She doesn’t have that ‘wow’ factor that makes her stand out. And I feel like I’ve seen the same photo of her a hundred times.
I’ve never really liked her. Her face is always blank. She’s sorta dead behind the eyes.
I actually think her eyes have a warm spark. But this is just a bad photo, like she’s not completely feeling well or something and the makeup was too natural to keep her from looking off. There had to have been better shots from this shoot.
i liked the editorial minus the “millipeed”
It’s blah because she looks like every other blonde model out there. I can see why she felt she needed a partnership with a big name in fashion. Nothing about her stands out. She’s a dime a dozen model. I don’t say that to be cruel but all the famous models have something physical that defined them. Whether it was Cindy’s beauty mark or Helena Christensen’s bitch face or Christie Brinkley’s smile and bright eyes or even Kate Moss’ heroin look. Natalia while pretty, is just dull to me as a model.
Are you serious? She’s got 4 kids and only works when she feels like it these days. She’s achieved everything there is to achieve for a model years ago. She doesn’t need a “partnership with a big name in fashion.”.
I suppose I can understand her getting Vogue Paris but Natalia was not someone I imagined resonated with the US market, at least not anymore.
I can think of a few more ‘celeb’ models that would have made far more sense for a current US cover.
Same, I’m really surprised she’s in American Vogue.
Natalia is stunning!
Shocked that it’s not someone from Interstellar or Mockingjay. Haha.
My tought also
I’ve seen Belle du Seigneur, that movie was cringe worthy, but she’s really pretty, can’t denied that.
I’ve never been a fan of Liebowitz’s work. This should be a stunning cover, but somehow…yeah, its blah. I think the model should have had more interesting eye makeup for one thing.
I think that is it. I love the dress and she is beautiful, but the undone face and hair just kind of look blah with the blank look she is giving. That, and her hair is sort of blending in with the background.
Her hair looks like mine does when it needs to be washed.
Never thought I’d compare myself to a ‘Vogue’ cover girl, but there you have it!
She looks like a mom that got dressed up
She’s so breathtakingly pretty! One of my favorite models for sure.
She’s pretty but the covershoot is not using her very well – also what’s with all the text? US Vogue covers always look like that.
I like the ed. It might be the setting more than the use of model though.
Nice Photoshop hack job on that cover. Her arms aren’t even the same width.
She’s expressed a great admiration for Putin. ‘Nuff said.
That is a massive pile of bland.
She has four kids. Four. And still look like a teenager.
And to bring things full circle, Natalia had 3 kids with a guy named Portman prior to hooking up with Arnault…
THe Pegasus photo is stunning. I also love the leaping male dancer one too. I figure I’ll take the mediocrity of the others just to get those two marvellous images.
She’s beautiful and everything but you can tell she’s not a dancer and so seems incredibly out of place. Wish they got a more physical model
She’s pretty, but that cover and the insert photo are horrible. The top one, she looks sick; what’s going on with her facial expression? And where she’s standing, she absolutely doesn’t look like a ballerina. Ballerinas have wonderful posture. Would it have been so hard to stand up straight?
I miss the days of real models on the covers of magazines. Elle McPherson, Cindy Crawford, and those supermodels really knew how to give good face back then. This “dead eyed fish with gaping lips” look that is on most covers these days just doesn’t make sense to me.
I just don’t think her new partner is getting her these covers. In Grace Coddington’s memoir she says that Natalia is the model they most want to use in this generation of models; but it’s hard to convince her to work because she’s busy being a mother. All that’s changed is that she’s agreeing to more shoots. Besides, her new partner is not the heir who will run everything. There are more powerful people from his family in that company; and by all reports, his family despises her.
This is a terrible shoot but she is still a great model in her own right.
At least this cover is a little more interesting that the usual American Vogue boring vanilla crap.
I am sorry, I feel like we are not looking at the same photo….I think she is beautiful, alas as others have said not remarkably otherworldly or striking, but beautiful, but this cover?!? It’s like someone is angry at her. Her face! If you split it down the middle it looks like two different faces fused together. And kind of like a man in drag. This cover does NO justice to such a good looking woman
I love her, and I hate that people think she is getting work simply because she is dating A.A. ; she was a supermodel long before him.
I adore her – her warmth and generosity and ravishing beauty. She stood up years ago and complained how models were pressured into eating disorders and admitted that losing her baby weight was very hard. Imagine giving a lustrous beauty like her a hard time for being normal and healthy. Sickening.
But yeah, the cover looks like she was squished to fit the frame. Lol.
She is really beautiful… love her look