As the foremost Russian model,
Natalia Vodianova has done it all: high glam at Louis Vuitton, gorgeous girl-next-door at Stella McCartney, ultra-femme for Calvin Klein Euphoria. Her latest campaign is for Theory, which is undergoing a fairly significant rebranding since Olivier Theyskens’s departure in June 2014. First up was bringing back then promoting womenswear designer Lisa Kulson, who designed the label’s first pair of stretch trousers in the nineties. Then came a new brand image, which is where Vodianova factors in. “I wanted our people inside the company and people outside the company to look at Theory with a fresh mind,” Theory CEO Andrew Rosen said earlier this year. “I didn’t want to hold on inside the company to a lot of legacy things that I think were about a time and a place when business was different.” Fall is the model’s second season in front of the camera for the label, making her one of the driving forces establishing Theory’s new look. “It is true that I usually have long-lasting relationships [with brands], and this time it felt like it could be a perfect match,” Vodianova wrote over email.
Her reasoning might stem from the fact that the Theory lifestyle is very much in line with her own. A mother to four who keeps her international modeling career going strong, she’s the kind of effortlessly chic woman on-the-go Theory aims to appeal to. In the David Sims–lensed campaign, Vodianova sports the brand’s easygoing slacks, loose blazers, and several marled knits she calls “real keepers”—looks not too far off from her real-world uniform. Could Theory’s oversize gray turtleneck make the woman who wears it appear as elegantly unstudied as Vodianova? It’s available for
preorder on the brand’s site; toss it on and see for yourself.