On the morning of the Fashion Awards 2019, Edward Enninful meets Irina Shayk at the Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. She is on the red carpet in a few hours and hasn’t decided on a final look (everything sent over so far won’t fit her famous curves), but the 34-year-old dynamo prioritises sitting down with British Vogue’s editor-in-chief to discuss her journey from Soviet Russia to supermodel status.

Born and raised in a middle-of-nowhere town called Yemanzhelinsk, Shayk’s father was a coal miner and her mother was a pianist, who played for kids in kindergarten. She lost her father, out of the blue, to pneumonia when she was 14, and the family learned how to survive as three women (her sister is 18 months older than her). “I always felt like I was born in the wrong body,” she says of feeling displaced during that time. “I felt I was supposed to be a boy... I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because my father always wanted a boy.”

“When he passed away, I thought, ‘Since I’m a guy, now it’s my time to take care of the family,’” she continues. “I said to myself I would never get married. Of course, later on in life I outgrew that, and I love being a woman. But I remember that feeling.”

© Mert Alas & Marcus Piggot

There’s a toughness to Shayk that is rooted in her upbringing. “I have a strong personality and I definitely know what I want, and I think some men are scared of that,” she says of how this can affect her personal life. “If somebody’s out of my life, they’re out of my life and I really cut all the ties, you know? I think some people are really scared of this coldness. I also think not many people know that underneath this there’s a nice, sweet person who cries in interviews.”

Life after Bradley Cooper, who she was with for four years and with whom she shares a three-year-old daughter, Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper, is reflective, says Shayk. “I think in all good relationships you bring your best and your worst – it’s just the nature of a human being,” she says. “Two great people don’t have to make a good couple.”

“I think we’ve been very lucky to experience what we had with each other,” she adds. “Life without B is new ground.” Shayk and Cooper co-parent Lea and – although an extraordinary mother – she admits, “It’s hard to find a balance between being a single mom and being a working woman and provider. Trust me, there are days I wake up and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what to do, I’m falling apart.’”

© Mert Alas & marcus Piggott

Read the full interview in the March issue of British Vogue, which is on newsstands on 31 January

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