Last month, yet another lavish party rocked Moscow. But this was not just any old party: it was Daria “Dasha” Zhukova’s moment. Amid rumours that her oligarch boyfriend, Roman Abramovich, had recently proposed to her, she welcomed 300 of art and fashion’s most powerful to a converted bus depot for the opening of her art gallery, the Center for Contemporay Culture Moscow, otherwise known as the Garage.
“Everyone was knocking back the vodkas,” says one guest, “but Dasha remained composed. She’s definitely a polite girl.” In a tight-fitting little black dress and a lick of make-up, the hostess transfixed guests — including Marc Newson and Larry Gagosian — when she swept into the room with Abramovich. Sober throughout, she knocked back just one shot of vodka during dinner. “I was next to Jeff Koons,” she explained. “It would have been rude not to do a shot with Jeff Koons.”
Unusually for a no-expense-spared party, guests had mostly paid their way. “People genuinely want to hang out with her, so they shelled out for hotels and flights.” Not that the event wasn’t spectacular. In keeping with the couple’s previous art-themed spending sprees — £17m on a Lucian Freud and £43.6m on a Bacon, plus a supermarket sweep of Art Basel in early June and the rumoured interest in a trio of Giacomettis — she had shipped in a light installation by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, which guests held onto to feel a pulse. Also hired in, at a rumoured cost of £1m, was the chanteuse of the moment Amy Winehouse (with whom, somewhat incongruously, Dasha shares the hair stylist Alex Foden). As Aliona Doletskaya, the editor of Russian Vogue, remarked: “The party was very successful, and the level of representation of Russian cultural and governmental figures was very high.” All in all, it was a most convincing way to announce her new global project.
So who is this girl? A spoilt young thing with the world’s richest sugar daddy for a boyfriend, or the real deal — a culturally acute, socially adept figure about to make a serious splash? “I want to start a dialogue with a Russian audience,” says Dasha, who spends a lot of time in Moscow and is collaborating with the Russian artist Ilya Kabakov on the Garage’s opening show in September. “We hope to attract all kinds of people, even those who know nothing about contemporary art.”
At a private dinner given by Stella McCartney in London recently, Dasha, immaculately turned out in rock-chick leggings and a black jacket (she was on her way to a Duran Duran concert), seemed taken aback by the stir she has caused. “It’s too early for any comparisons,” she says in her pretty, girlie voice. “Wait until September, when it opens.”
Kabakov’s wife, Emilia, has been working with Dasha for nearly a year, along with the gallery director Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst. “I like her state of mind — she’s like my daughter,” says Emilia. “She wants to do good things, all around the world, but mostly in Russia, even though she was raised in America. She is practical, like an American, and idealistic, like a Russian.” And loaded — like a billionaire. “At the start, she was just supposed to be a collaborator about the space,” says Emilia of Dasha’s role in the Garage, an architectural masterpiece she acquired. “Then she became much more than that, and Roman stepped in and sponsored us.”
In fact, Abramovich’s new-found interest in art is being put down largely to Dasha, a cultured, intelligent young woman who couldn’t be further from the new Russian stereotype of diamonds and denim. “She has a proper visual sense,” says Emilia. “She has great potential.”
Potential that is already being proven. When her fledgling fashion line, Kova & T, produced PVC leggings in its debut collection last year, they became an overnight fashion hit — cheap knock-offs at American Apparel are still flying off the shelves. But it’s not just luck and connections — determination and hard work are driving her, too. “She’s more serious than people think,” says Emilia. “She’s working 24/7 on the project and has 70 people working for her.”
Surrounded by a tight circle of friends, little is known about the polished jet-setter. “She is very, very private,” says one friend, while another will offer no more than, “charming, intelligent, elegant and discreet”. Until two years ago, she was virtually unknown — society pages routinely got her name wrong.
“She comes from an extraordinary family,” says a friend. Her mother, Elena, is a molecular biologist, until recently based at UCLA, who has enjoyed a steadily successful career in science. Her father, Alexander, is an oligarch in his own right. In 2001, he was held in a Turin jail for illegal arms dealing. Eventually, he was cleared, and he now spends his time flying between Moscow and Kensington. He has married again, twice, with twin boys from his second marriage. Dasha reportedly has a poor relationship with her latest stepmother, Svetlana. Quite what Alexander felt when an old mate of his started dating his daughter is unreported. He divorced Elena when Dasha was a 10; Elena then moved with her daughter to California for her work.
Dasha holds a degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and, after splitting with the Russian tennis ace Marat Safin, came to London two years ago to continue her studies. Certainly, she was by no means a party girl. “She used to get her walkers to take her, then flee after 10 minutes,” says a friend. Then, overnight, whispers connected her to Britain’s second-richest man. They were spotted getting into a helicopter. Abramovich and his wife subsequently divorced. Like many other Russian bombshells based in London, Dasha set up a clothing line, with an old friend, Christina Tang. “People just want to wear a T-shirt and a pair of jeans instead of buying the whole Gucci collection,” said Dasha, who threw an intimate Marie Antoinette- themed dinner in Grosvenor Place, Mayfair, to launch Kova & T (stocked at Harvey Nichols, natch). The guests spoke French, the language of imperial Russia, while Dasha and her friends spent most of the evening puffing cigarettes on a balcony overlooking Buck House.
“The amount of effort was extraordinary,” says Style’s Jessica Brinton, “yet it was incredibly informal. The girls weren’t dressed up. It was nearly cancelled at the last minute several times and everyone was late anyway. It was wonderfully louche, a weird contrast of extravagance and laissez faire. The specially installed chrome dancefloor wasn’t even used. It was studied casualness — what the new set is all about.” The party also revealed Dasha’s crew — a young, hedonistic collection of fashionable and moneyed European playboys and girls who think nothing of jetting to Paris for lunch or St Petersburg for a birthday party. Her best friend is Olympia Scarry, a blonde socialite who used to date Nellee Hooper. The two girls share a flat — an MTV-meets-Chelsea bachelorette pad stuffed with modern art and strewn with party clothes. She also hangs out with Princess Caroline of Monaco’s children, Andrea and Charlotte, and the British aristocrat Sophia Hesketh, who helps her with events. Also on side is the Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova, a girl from a very different background. “I like Dasha,” she says. “She’s down to earth and sure of herself. She grew up in LA, so she’s different — international — but she still has Russian kindness.”
This intriguing mix of unpretentiousness and spending power makes Dasha an exciting enigma. She talks in a Valley girl drawl, and is prone to describe things as “brutal”. To her loyal subjects — who also include Jenson Button’s ex-girlfriend Florence Brudenell-Bruce and the toff playboy Ed Spencer-Churchill — she is extremely generous. “She’s happy to share her staff,” says one friend. “She’ll often go home early and let everyone take her driver, and she’ll have friends to stay in her hotel room. She is constantly moving, whether it’s Moscow, Paris, New York or the south of France — she doesn’t stay anywhere. And when she’s with Roman, she’s with Roman. Friends don’t come along.”
Quite how Abramovich came to be involved with the lithe 26-year-old remains a mystery — but it is said they were brought together through a shared love of football, meeting at a Champions League game between Barcelona and Chelsea. Around her shy boyfriend, she is reserved. The relationship has reportedly been far from smooth, with suggestions in the Russian press that he gets annoyed with her spending and doesn’t like going to the fashion and art events she enjoys. Certainly, her relationship with Safin was stormy: “We used to fight, break up, get back together again. It was all quite hectic,” he said after the split.
One fashion editor recalls bumping into Dasha and Abramovich in the south of France last summer. “We were all queuing for a restaurant when they arrived in a Wally, a super-slick black tender from the big boat. They were dressed down in Ralph Lauren and happy to queue alongside us for a table. I was with a bunch of models and it became obvious Roman appreciates a pretty woman. I wasn’t sure if Dasha was okay with this.
“On another occasion, she arrived with Roman, again dressed down, in a floral dress and no make-up. There wasn’t much chemistry between them — not much laughter. Maybe that’s a Russian thing. Overall, I thought she was very grown-up and composed for her age, and took her for a 35-year-old.”
Still, they seem to be strong for the time being, and goodness knows what kind of party Dasha might throw if they got married. Unconfirmed reports in Russia have been speculating that preparations for a huge wedding are under way, with six parties planned around the world. Dasha apparently wants a ceremony in the Maldives, with a low-key party in Moscow in October, after her gallery opens. The biggest wedding party is being planned for London. We live in hope.
And for the future? “Young Russian girls have a new role model,” says a friend of Dasha. “They want to grow up and be like her. She’s hot and she’s cool — she’s got the fashion line, the flash friends, the art gallery and, of course, the gazillionaire.”
