Dasha admits she knows little about art

Daria ‘Dasha’ Zhukova, fashion designer, international It girl and girlfriend of Roman Abramovich, is often credited as the woman who got the Russian oligarch interested in contemporary art (he recently splashed out more than £60m on paintings by Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon). However, despite being the power behind the multi-million pound Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture (GCCC) soon to open in Moscow - or Dasha’s Garage as it’s been nicknamed in Russian art circles - it appears that the 27-year-old’s knowledge of art is, at best, hazy.

In an interview in the Guardian, she says: "I have never been a collector. I have a few pieces that I got for my birthdays or that I bought for myself: I acquire things that speak to me and put them on my wall. When I see things I like, I just know." When asked which artists she particularly likes, she says in a Valley Girl drawl (she was born in Moscow but educated in Los Angeles): "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names."

Daria has already made a successful venture into fashion with Kova & T – her £75 Dasha Skinny jeans are popular in LA and Moscow – and is wealthy in her own right: her father Alexander is an oil magnate and business associate of Abramovich’s. So why is she opening a museum of contemporary art? "You know, I have no clear explanation," she says. "It is a bunch of things. I like to create, to do something new, something that does not have a predictable outcome. I love art and this project excites me and it has an incredible potential to be immensely challenging and satisfying."

She adds: "I won't pretend to be the biggest connoisseur of the contemporary artists of today, though I know and love it [modern art] quite a lot. I have many interests and I like keeping busy and working on several projects at the same time." One of those projects is the Serpentine Gallery summer party early next month which Dasha has dug into her own pocket – apparently not Roman’s – to sponsor.