Interview

To many, Dasha Zhukova came out of nowhere. That’s because, until recently, the 28-year-old art patron, fashion designer, museum founder, and newly anointed editor in chief of Pop magazine was just another wealthy Russian girl schlepping a croc Birkin around London in a chauffeured Mercedes. Sure, she may have been spotted at a few events in years past, but she was rarely pursued. A little bit of pre-2008 photo research results in only a few images, namely from when she dated a certain Russian tennis player who for a time was ranked number one in the world. Today, the tennis-player boyfriend is gone, and in his place is 42-year-old Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who Vanity Fair ranked number eight on last year’s list of most powerful people.

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And last summer, Zhukova did something that spurred her from quiet rich-girl-dom. She opened the Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, more familiarly known as The Garage, since it’s housed in a renovated 1920s bus depot. Suddenly, Dasha (which is an affectionate -Russian diminutive of Daria) was everywhere: famously hiring Amy Winehouse to perform at the opening party for The Garage in June 2008; joining the committee of the Serpentine Gallery in London and sprucing up their annual fundraiser in September; hobnobbing with Larry Gagosian at a gallery opening in Rome in February; sitting front row during Paris Fashion Week in March . . .

The girl’s status has changed indeed: Now paparazzi run after her in New York. The interest in Zhukova—who readily admits that while she has houses in Moscow and London, she spends most of her time on a plane—isn’t exactly a mystery. She blossomed at a time when many were looking to MotherRussia as a new world power player, and as an attractive entrepreneur, she’s been labeled one of Russia’s rich new things. There are those who speculated that the reason she found Abramovich so attractive was his wallet. But Zhukova’s father, who owned oil companies before diversifying, was also an oligarch. The Garage is the first contemporary art museum of its magnitude in Moscow, with an opening show of the Russian artists Ilya and EmiliaKabakov, followed by the wildly impressive François Pinault collection and a collaboration between David Lynch and Christian Louboutin. And last but not least, Zhukova looks like a million bucks (or a billion rubles).

What is so endearing about Zhukova, however, is that while many of life’s pleasures stare her squarely in the face, she has remained down-to-earth. During the course of this interview, which was conducted in the bar at the Ritz in Paris, Lily Allen slurred by the table and feigned horror that this conversation was being recorded since she was occupying the next booth over. Zhukova decided she liked Allen. “I just read the interview that Damien [Hirst] did with her,” Zhukova explained, referring to the February issue of this magazine. “And she’s funny. It was so refreshing to finally hear a girl not denying that she likes a good time. I cannot listen to another girl say, ‘I’m not a party girl. I just happen to always get photographed falling on the floor with lipstick all over my face and a bottle of champagne sticking out of my bag.’” For the record, Zhukova had champagne during this interview, and moved on to vodka later that evening.