The Many Lives of Natasha Poly.

As one of fashion’s most prolific models, Natasha Poly has worked with some of the greatest creative directors and photographers in the industry. Here she shares some of those memories.

Natasha Poly for Perfect Issue 11.

Photographer: Willy Vanderperre
Fashion Editor: Katie Grand
Writer: Byan Yambao

Natasha Poly Zooms me from Amsterdam on a Saturday evening, fresh from the gym, hair pulled into a slick ponytail, wearing a plunging white vest. Her skin glows with the kind of frightening perfection that makes her look less human than bionic. My numero uno. 

As I was finding my place in fashion in the early 2000s, she was quietly becoming the gold standard. Her runway walk of yesteryears infiltrated my core being. Put me on a goddamn airport moving walkway with music blasting through my AirPods and I will start mincing toward passport control, one foot directly in front of the other, summoning my inner Natasha.

More than 20 years into her career, the precision is severe. No lost decade. No comeback. Luck expires. Most careers zigzag. Natasha’s is laser guided.

Fashion kept moving the target.

She never missed.

‘The challenge is to reinvent yourself all the time,’ she says. ‘You have to show yourself from different perspectives so people don’t get used to this one image.’

Earlier in her career, it was go, go, go: red-eye flights, night shoots, life out of a suitcase. ‘You didn’t really understand what was going on.’ Today, every decision is measured with her agents through what she calls ‘real teamwork’. It begins with one question: ‘What am I missing at the moment?’ Every project has to offer ‘something I haven’t done before’.

‘I always loved the transformation,’ she says. ‘I was obsessive… The wigs, different crazy make-up, bleached eyebrows, crazy nails, crazy outfits.’ She misses when image-making was willing to be stranger. ‘I had so many crazy sets with horses and rabbits, flies all over my body, snakes, skeletons.’

Fashion today, she says, is ‘a little bit calmer – people don’t take as many risks.’

Natasha still does. Presented with several wigs on a recent shoot, she refused to choose. ‘Let’s use them all!’

And then the sentence that explains everything: ‘I love to see myself in different ways. Otherwise it’s so boring. Give me something!’

Matthieu Blazy did. At the recent autumn 2026 Chanel haute couture show, he told her: ‘You’re going to be my scarecrow.’ By the second fitting, the dry-grass hat, raffia shoes and every unruly element had snapped into place. The scarecrow came to life. He told her there were ‘many lives of Natasha’.

‘After so many years, after becoming so many different things, this was still a complete surprise,’ she says. ‘I thought, oh my God, who could have imagined this?’

John Galliano was one of Natasha’s greatest teachers. She remembers his shows as ‘a modelling test’ and ‘an acting lesson’. Every outfit came with a role. 

‘This is your character,’ he would tell her. ‘You’re a spooky lady... imagine you’re walking around, interacting with the audience, picking up stuff on the set.’ Then came the challenge: ‘You have to bring it! All of his shows were like that,’ Natasha says. ‘It was an amazing experience, an amazing lesson.’

With Willy Vanderperre, the volume drops. ‘He’s so gentle. So caring. It’s all about quietness and light,’ Natasha says. They worked together almost every week at the beginning of her career, building characters and worlds together. 

The greatest compliment came from her mother. Looking at Willy’s photographs, she said: ‘This is my daughter. He really photographed you exactly who you are. This is my angel daughter.’ After decades of fashion transforming Natasha into countless women, Willy’s pictures brought her back to herself.

Fashion never stopped asking Natasha Poly to become someone else.

The images change. 

The standard remains.

Bull’s-eye.