Russian Model- Tatiana Sorokko

Tatiana Sorokko (Russian: Татьяна Николаевна Сорокко, pronunciation Tatyana Nikolayevna Sorokko; born 26 December 1971; née Ilyushkina) is a Russian-born American model, fashion journalist and haute couture collector. She walked the runways for the world’s most prominent designers and fashion houses, appeared on covers of leading fashion magazines, and became the first Russian model of the post-Soviet period to gain international recognition. After modeling, Sorokko worked as contributing editor for such publications as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. Her distinct personal style and her private collection of historically important haute couture clothing were subjects of museum exhibitions in Russia and the U.S.

Career

Within two weeks in Paris, she began walking runways for Dior and Yves Saint Laurent and was photographed for Harper’s Bazaar by the influential French photographer Guy Bourdin. The 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) blue-eyed Sorokko has modeled for Dior, Givenchy, Chanel, Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Lacroix, Gianfranco Ferré, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen, Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Roberto Cavalli, Prada, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, Chado Ralph Rucci, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan, among others. She was frequently photographed for editorials and covers of European and American magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, W, Elle, Glamour, and Cosmopolitan.

In 1992, she and her husband, Serge Sorokko, moved to California. Already well known by major fashion designers and editors, her career took off in the U.S. just as it had done in Europe. Aside from her modeling engagements all over the globe, Sorokko continued her education at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she studied History of Fashion. She appeared on the cover of Runway, a book of fashion photographs by Larry Fink, and was featured opposite Brad Pitt in a commercial for Acura Integra.

In 1994, she made a brief appearance in Robert Altman’ s movie Prêt-à-Porter. She was the subject of a book, published in Moscow, Russian Models, by Ekaterina Vasilyeva, which credited her as the first widely recognized Russian model to emerge after perestroika.

With the publication of the December 2001 issue of the Russian edition of Vogue, Sorokko, who is fluent in both Russian and English, embarked on a new career as its Foreign Correspondent and Contributing Editor. As author of Telegram from Tatiana Sorokko, a popular monthly column of fashion and style commentary, she covered a wide range of hot topics and personalities. Among numerous subjects of Sorokko’s stories, drawn from her first-hand experiences, were fashion and design luminaries such as Gianfranco Ferré, Ralph Rucci, Andrée Putman, Manolo Blahnik, Yohji Yamamoto, Philip Treacy, Richard Avedon, and Herb Ritts, to name a few. Her last Telegram was published in the December 2004 issue of Vogue. In the early 2000s, Sorokko also contributed to the Italian Vanity Fair, for whom she produced and styled photo shoots with prominent personalities, including actor Peter Coyote and author Isabel Allende, to name a few.

In January 2005, Sorokko began work as Contributing Editor for American Harper’s Bazaar. Among many notable personalities, Sorokko interviewed Kateryna Yushchenko, American wife of the Ukrainian President, for the September 2005 issue, and, for the August 2008 issue, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Tatiana Sorokko has styled shoots featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and Linda Evans, Donatella Versace and daughter, Allegra Beck, fashion designer Andrew Gn and Tod’s founder, Diego Della Valle, Republican Presidential Nominee, Senator John McCain and wife Cindy McCain, Wolfgang Puck and his wife, accessories designer Gelila Assefa, and Ralph Lauren in Moscow, among others.

In 2009, she was listed in the Moscow edition of Time Out magazine among the extraordinary “50 People and Things that are Moscow’s Gift to the World.”

In December 2014, Sorokko made a modeling comeback with a six-page fashion editorial in Harper’s Bazaar shot by Mark Seliger. According to the San Francisco Chronocle, “the spread, titled “A Grand Return,” showcase[d] the fairy tale fashions and furs seen on the fall 2014 runways” and marked Sorokko’s first foray back into modeling in more than a decade.