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Byline: BY AERIN LAUDER EDITOR: ALEXANDRA KOTUR
"FABERG% WOULD ANSWER THE ROYAL COURT'S DEMAND FOR FLOWERS YEAR-ROUND BY MAKING VERSIONS IN RUBIES"
On the terminal bus at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, all I could do was stare at her shoes. The woman beside me, despite the subzero temperature, was wearing delicate sandals. Over the next four days--two in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg--I realized that Russians have never felt defeated by the world around them. I understood that while listening to Natalia Vodianova speak so movingly about her premodel life in her native country, working at her family's fruit stand for twelve hours at a time in all weather. (Like me, she was in town for a luxury conference.) I thought it again at the Hermitage, where Faberge would answer the royal court's demand for flowers all year round by making versions in rubies, emeralds, pearls, diamonds. . . . The conference was interesting--and fun because ...