The first time Victoria Sekrier met Steven Meisel, it was on a shoot for Italian Vogue. A short while after leaving her native USSR, she didn’t have a clue who he was and couldn’t speak a word of English. “I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying,” she recalls. “I quickly had to learn things like, ‘chin up, chin down, look left, and look right.’ It was really challenging turning up to a shoot and not being able to communicate with anyone apart from when you’re on set.” Not that that affected the rate in which she was booked. In fact, so quick was her assent that the Russian schoolgirl suddenly found herself at the beating heart of fashion, walking for the likes of Prada, Alexander McQueen and Miu Miu. British Vogue dubbed her as a new face of fashion almost ten years ago along with the likes of Lily Donaldson, Gemma Ward and fellow Russian, Natasha Poly. “I think I was just able to connect with casting directors and photographers in a different way,” she says. “Sometimes you may not be able to understand someone but you just connect with them.”
Today Victoria is sitting curled up in a chair in the home she shares with her husband, whom she met at a Prince gig in London, in Peckham, South East London. The last time I saw her properly, I was dressing her in my childhood bedroom, ready to battle the elements on location a stone’s throw away from my parents’ home. A lot has changed since then. She’s since moved away from posing in front of the camera, seeking solace behind the lens as a stylist, lending her eye to likes of Vanity Fair, Interview and Tank magazine.
While you might not know her name, or indeed who she’s dating, what pets she has and what she ate for lunch yesterday in the same way you might for the likes of Cara or Jourdan, Victoria has come a long way. “I didn’t fit in in Russia at all,” she tells me. “It sounds silly but from the age of 13 I just had this clear idea that I was never going to end up there; that I was supposed to be somewhere else.” An athlete in school, she was a tomboy and had no interest in pursuing a career as a model. Her mum sent her to an agency in a bid to make her feminine. Three months later she was scouted by IMG and relocated to Paris and New York. The rest, as they say, is history. “I wasn’t really aware of the big models coming out of Russia at the time. There were a few magazines around like Russian Elle and Cosmopolitan but that was about it so when I was scouted and they said they wanted me to move to New York and Paris, my mum was like, ‘no fucking way,’” she laughs. “He came back a couple of months later with more agents from IMG to show that he was working for a good company. He showed us pictures of the Russian girls they were representing and their work to prove to my mum that they were a legitimate company. I was young but I knew that that was my golden ticket out of Russia.”
I know a lot girls who have really struggled to figure out what they want to be and who they want to become when their modelling career comes to an end. It only lasts forever for a few girls. Not everyone is Kate Moss or Linda Evangelista.
Despite the countless covers, the campaigns and the racked up editorial spreads, her head hasn’t been turned by her success. Victoria is a rare proposition in today’s landscape: a model for whom success cannot be plotted on a graph in direct proportion to personal scandals and social media fame. She’s still friends with the likes of Sasha Pivovarova, but not that you would know. She’s low key and says a lot of things I relate to, things people in the industry hesitate to talk candidly about. It seems indicative of the understated lifestyle she’s created for herself in London since arriving from New York five years ago; a luxury not afforded to many of her model contemporaries, who have opened the virtual Pandora’s box and are now 24/7 brands in their own right. The world she inhabits is a far cry from all that.
It was never in doubt that she would go into fashion. “I was interested in fashion design before I became a model. It was something I was always interest in when I was growing up, because there wasn’t a lot to buy in Russia,” she explains. “The 90s and early noughties were pretty bad for pretty much everyone in Russia. Nobody had money so you had to make clothes yourself and be creative so my mum and I were always knitting and remodelling old clothes into new pieces.” Even her mum had design ambitions, despite settling as an engineer. “In many ways I think that me pursuing modelling and fashion was her dream.” Ironically, it was modelling that made her U-turn on her ambition to start a line of her own. “I saw first hand how super tough it is,” she admits. “I respect aspiring designers who work really hard to try and make something out of themselves. It’s really admirable but I would never launch my own label without having massive backing.”
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”1200256″]
She got into styling by chance. Before moving to London she had a stint assisting stylist Alastair McKimm but the timing wasn’t right, she says. “I wish I had met him later because I wasn’t in a place where I thought that styling was what I would end up doing.” She only decided to take it up full time after a photographer friend of a friend got in touch asking to photograph her. “I agreed on the basis that I could style myself. I had so many clothes from doing shows, being gifted and being paid with clothes that I could use so we ended up shooting together.”
Now a highly sought after stylist, Victoria casts herself as one of the lucky ones. “When you’re modelling, you’re in such a bubble that you’re completely unaware of any skills you have beyond looking good. I know a lot girls who have really struggled to figure out what they want to be and who they want to become when their modelling career comes to an end. It only lasts forever for a few girls,” she adds. “Not everyone is Kate Moss or Linda Evangelista. For me, having someone encouraging me to do something else made me think about doing more of it.”
She spent two years testing with photographs before bagging a contributing fashion editor role on NeverUnderdressed.com, which sadly folded last year. “That was my first real styling job,” she says humbly. “It was a really good learning curve, especially as I had never really assisted anyone for a long period. I was quite lucky to have been given that position considering how little experience I had.”
Was all of the those years in front of the camera a good grounding for understanding the ingredients of a good shot, I ask? “Yeah, definitely,” she says without hesitation. “As a model you spend time with the make up artist and the hairdresser, and the stylist and then, you know, the photographer, so you experience every process of the shoot, whereas as the assistant is often off steaming so doesn’t get to experience all of that.” Her styling aesthetic is less about her own personal style and more about drawing on her experiences.
She’s a big fan of fashion. She respects the creative process and fashion – from Charlie May to shoe designer Kat Maconie – respects her. She represents a new generation of stylists, as essential to a brand’s success because of the magazines they are affiliated to as they are because of the way they dress themselves. Type in Victoria’s name on Google and you’ll probably see more street style image of her than her work. There’s something effortless about incredibly dynamic about the way she pulls a look together. “I love brands like Celine, Prada and Dries Van Noten,” she confesses. “Dries for example, isn’t airy fairy. I think it’s really feminine yet there’s a really powerful masculine influence in them. What I love about those three brands is that they’re not uptight,” she adds. It’s not uptight, it’s not bodycon or sexy like Versace, Mulger or anything like that. It’s a completely different world.”
Comfort is her modus operandi. Her peacocking days are long gone, she admits. “In my head, street style is something that represents your personal style and how you dress everyday. When I see people at fashion week sometimes, I think, ‘I don’t fucking believe that’s how you dress.’ When I first started going to the shows, it was very exciting being asked to be photographed so I wanted to make an effort. I used to borrow a lot of clothes, whereas now I only try and wear stuff that’s already in my wardrobe,” she continues. “I’ve had years being put into clothes, being made to play a character that isn’t necessarily me so I thought to myself, ‘Why am I still doing this?’” Sometimes I have friends who work in the agencies and represent brands that I really love, so sometimes I’ll ask to borrow a look, not because I have to dress up, but because I just like it!”
So your style has changed then, I ask? “ Definitely! I think it’s far better now! Looking back, what I wore was a reflection of where I was at during a time when I was going to shows for the first time and really wanted to be noticed. Now, I really don’t care.”
Photographs by Dvora with art direction by Naomi Mdudu. Victoria is represented by Models1.