Daria Werbowy photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin for V magazine
Daria Werbowy (born November 19, 1983) is a Ukrainian Canadian model. She is perhaps best known as a spokesperson for the French beauty brand Lancôme.
Although born in Kraków, Poland, Werbowy holds both Canadian and Ukrainian citizenship. When she was three years old, Werbowy’s Ukrainian parents moved to Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She attended St. Sofia Ukrainian Catholic Elementary School and Cawthra Park Secondary School as a visual arts student.
Werbowy had never seriously considered modeling, but found herself launched into the business after meeting a schoolmate’s mother who headed Toronto’s Susan J. Model & Talent Management. At age 14, Werbowy won a national modelling contest, but after a year of working with Susan J. Model & Talent, however, Werbowy thought she could be doing more with another agency and left.
After switching over to Elite Models, Werbowy began landing several prominent bookings in Canada but still had not achieved much international success. Daria lived in London and Greece, where ‘there were loads of castings, but no work’. Her first runway season was disrupted and her bookings canceled after the 9/11 attacks in New York City. After a disappointing eight months Werbowy returned to Canada. She gave modeling a final shot as a means to fund her art school education.
When Elite Canada’s head scout, Elmer Olsen, started his own agency, Werbowy followed and her career began to flourish. Within a few years, and under the guidance of International Management Group (IMG), Werbowy had gained a foothold on the international modelling stage.
Though she relinquished the world’s No.1 runway model status to new “it girls”, Werbowy holds the record for opening and closing the most shows in one season. To date, Werbowy’s clients have included Lancôme, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Roberto Cavalli, Gucci, Hermès, Valentino, David Yurman, Missoni, Versace, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel.
On September 6, 2008, Daria was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame. She is the second Canadian model, after Linda Evangelista, to have a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame. Earlier that year, Werbowy launched a three-piece makeup collection by Lancôme for Sephora. The proceeds went to the Vik Muniz charity Centrao Especial for underprivileged youth in Brazil.
Daria is an avid sailor and spent three months in 2008 sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. She recently began a two-month-long expedition from Guatemala, travelling round Central America to Costa Rica in 2011.
