Daria: ‘mean’ Mourinho not sexy

When the story first broke in 2006 that the richest man in London, Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich, while still married to his wife Irina, might be seeing a gorgeous young model called Daria Zhukova, Daria simply vanished. There were sightings of her in California where her mother Elena, a molecular scientist, lives, and in Moscow where her father, Alex Zhukov, has his home. But basically she kept her head below the parapet.

Now, nearly a year after Abramovich divorced Irina, Dasha can be seen at Roman's side at Chelsea games (he owns the club), and is not holding back in promoting her very successful fashion line, Kova & T, a business she shares with an old schoolfriend from Los Angeles, Christina Tang.

In an interview accompanying a fashion spread in Vogue (above), Daria recalls the News of the World's expose of her relationship with Abramovich in October 2006. "I have always read the tabloids," she says. "But I had no idea what it meant to be all over them. At first it all seemed impossible and terrible... But once I realised these journalists just have a job to do and that whatever they write is nothing to do with me, I felt much better."

Twenty-six-year-old Daria - Dasha to her friends - shows no sign of being overawed by her boyfriend's fabulous wealth. But then her father was a rich man, too, making his fortune trading oil in the Ukraine. "We were a privileged family; my parents had never suffered poverty in Russia. We always had nice things and drivers."

Daria was asked by Vogue whether she agreed that Jose Mourinho, the dynamic Chelsea manager fired by Abramovich, was sexy. "Mmmm. I don't think that it is sexy to be mean. I've never found that attractive." What on earth can she mean?