Dasha Zhukova

Dasha Zhukova

Dasha Zhukova, a beauty with brains and the ‘It girl’ of today’s fashion industry was born in 1981 and comes from a wealthy background being the daughter of Alexander and Elena Zhukova.  Her father was the owner of an oil company in Russia which is now defunct while her mother was a scientist who taught molecular biology at the UCLA. She migrated to Los Angeles in 1991 with her mother at the age of ten after her parents split up in 1984. Zhukova started studying at the University of California in Santa Barbara and later went to London to study homeopathy at College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2004.

In 2005, she called her off and on relationship with tennis player boyfriend Marat Safin quits and moved on to find Roman Abramovich on her way back to Russia. He is known to be one of Russia’s wealthiest men and Chelsea Football Club’s owner too. After being spotted together one too many times by the tabloids, Abramovich was left with no choice but to divorce his wife and get committed to Dasha.

With a keen sense of spotting art and fashion, her career took an unexpected turn when Dasha started her own fashion label with her friend Christina Tang called Kova & T in 2006. She started designing basics like leggings, t-shirts and jeans for the label which soon became popular among the celebrities. She founded a nonprofit organization by the name of Iris which focused on the development and promotion of Russia’s contemporary art and culture. June marked the beginning of her new venture, Garage; a centre for contemporary culture in Moscow. It was September when the Garage finally opened at a former bus depot designed in the decade of 1920s. In 2009, reports came in that garage had been visited more than 200,000 people and Zhukova landed a spot in the Vogue’s Best Dressed List of 2008 in January.

Britain’s Pop Magazine appointed Zhukova as the Editor-in-Chief in February. She was very excited to start her new job and said that it would give her a chance to unite with talented individuals. In November of the same year, Dasha co-chaired Los Angeles Gallery of Contemporary Art’s 30th anniversary gala. She gave birth to a baby boy in December; her first child with her boyfriend Roman Abramovich named Aaron Alexander Abramovich. In search of greener pastures, Dasha resigned from the post of Editor-in-Chief in a span of less than two years.

Zhukova started her own magazine by the name of Garage, a fashion and culture magazine in August 2011. Garage created a lot of hype even before the first issue came out due to its originality and the fact that in an age where all the other fashion magazines are becoming more and more dominated by digital technology, Garage is like a breath of fresh air with its almost handmade look. She invested in and became the creative director of Artsy.net, an internet portal for artwork search. The unique, one of kind search engine was supported by famous names like Larry Gagosian, Wendy Murdoch and Peter Thiel. In April of 2013, she gave birth to her daughter, Leah Lou. Zhukova is known for her associations with the international elite like she was seen attending the Art Basel Dinner with Wendy Murdoch, Tina Brown and Steve Cohen. Dasha Zhukova also has a reputation for throwing the wildest parties.