Gisele Bündchen

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Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen (born July 20, 1980) is a Brazilian supermodel, most noted for being one of the original Victoria's Secret Angels and one of the world's premiere high-fashion models.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Personal life
3 Trivia
4 External links

Biography

Bündchen was born in Três de Maio, near Horizontina, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, to Valdir and Vânia Bündchen, both of German descent. She has five sisters: Raquel, Graziela, Patrícia, Gabriela and Rafaela, and Bündchen and Patrícia are fraternal twins. Bündchen has mentioned several times that at least one of her sisters has attempted a modeling career as well. Pictures of her family reveal they share the same statuesque bone structures, and long, wavy brown hair.

While in school, Bündchen was so thin that her friends used to call her "Olívia Palito" (Portuguese for Olive Oyl, Popeye's skinny friend), and Saracura (a kind of long-legged bird). She enjoyed playing volleyball, and had even considered becoming a professional for the Brazilian team, Sogipa. An often told story of Bündchen's "discovery" is a schoolgirl incident where an agent discovered the bronze-haired beauty while eating a Big Mac at a local McDonald's. In an interview, Bündchen remarked that she originally did not know what a model was, thinking it was something akin to being a hooker.

In 1993, a 13-year-old Bündchen joined the Dilson Stein's mannequin course to correct her posture, with her sisters Patrícia and Gabriela, because her mother insisted. The course was designed for teenagers aspiring to become models. In May 1994, Stein took 50 girls to São Paulo to give them an opportunity to walk in a big city and to be evaluated by Brazilian Elite agents. On August 20, 1993, while Bündchen was playing volleyball for Sogipa, in Porto Alegre, Elite "kidnapped" her and took her to a contest. She came in second in the national Elite Look of the Year contest – Claudia Menezes, from Bahia, took first place. In the world contest, in Ibiza, Bündchen came in fourth. While she was easily noticeable for her beauty, she still endured physical criticism.

Bündchen at the Fashion Rio 2006.

As a teen, Bündchen moved to New York City to begin her runway debut at Fashion Week. She decided to get a blue star tattoo on her left wrist because on her first night in a foreign city, she could not find a star to pray to. The star tattoo is very noticeable on the model, but there seems to be no attempt to cover it up with make-up in photo shoots or runway shows. After her debut in NYC, she was immediately embraced by the fashion world.

Bündchen has since done ads and runway shows for many of the most prestigious fashion houses including Valentino, Zara, Bulgari, Chloé, Celine, Versace, Christian Dior, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton. She endorses several Brazilian brands, notably Vivo, a cellular service company, and the Brazilian subsidiary of C&A and she also has her own line of shoes called Ipanema Gisele Bündchen. She has appeared on the covers of many high-profile magazines including Allure, Marie Claire, Vogue, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, Arena, Time, i-D, The Face, Forbes, Newsweek and Rolling Stone. Bündchen has multi-million contracts with Victoria's Secret, Ebel, and St. John. In 2006 alone she had 20 contracts and earned $30 million. She is rumored to be the face of an advertising campaign for Apple Computer, however, this has yet to be confirmed. [1]

Personal life

Bündchen has a dog, Vida, and her homes include an apartment in Manhattan's TriBeCa district and a house near Woodstock, New York. Bündchen broke up with actor Leonardo DiCaprio in November 2005 and reportedly had an affair with surfer Kelly Slater. Before DiCaprio, she had been romantically linked to male model Scott Barnhill, Brazilian tycoon João Paulo Diniz, hotel tycoon Vikram Chatwal, and actor Josh Hartnett.

Trivia

She has received the "Model of the Year" award and has been named "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" by Rolling Stone. The Sunday Times awarded her "perfect body in the world".
She has five sisters: Raquel, Graziela, Gabriela, Rafaela and Patrícia (who was born in the same day, but is not an identical twin).
Originally wanted to be a professional volleyball player and had even thought of becoming a member for Brazilian team, Sogipa.
Speaks Portuguese as her native language, as well as English as her second language.
In 2004, she and her then-boyfriend, Leonardo DiCaprio, visited the Xingu, one of the biggest Brazilian tribes of Indians. The visit was made almost anonymously.
As supporter of soccer club Gremio, a soccer team from her hometown, Gisele announced in 2005 she will help promote the image of her favourite team, a former world champion, when the team was in a ultimately succesfull run to return to the national first division.
Is 5 minutes older than twin sister Patrícia.
Her name is actually pronounced Giseli (The e at the end of her name is not silent). She has said it doesn't matter to her now how people pronounce her name.
Her mother, Vania Bundchen, is of German descent and speaks fluent German.
Designed a limited edition necklace sold to raise money for St. Jude Children's Hospital cancer treatment efforts. She gives 5% of her earnings to charity.
Appeared most often on the cover of American Vogue. She did four covers only in 1999. She is also the second model who most appeared on the cover of British Vogue, after Kate Moss.
Forbes magazine named her the best paid model of all time. Her personal fortune is valued in 150 million dollars, and she is on the Guinness Book of Records as "the world's richest supermodel".
After Brazilian clothier C&A hired her and started their TV commercials, the sales had an increase of 30%.
In 2001 she turned down a 20 million dollar offer from Clonaid to became their spokesperson.
Her last name is pronounced "Bindchen".
She is the owner of a hotel in the south of the Brazil, the Palladium Executive.
Chosen by People Magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World."
It is common knowledge Bundchen has undergone a nose job
She and Leonardo DiCaprio were chosen by People Magazine as the "Most Beatiful Couple in the World", in 2004.
In Brazil she is considered a national hero, at the same level of Pele and Carmen Miranda.
Her father, Valdir Bundchen, is a Brazilian university teacher and writer, with two books published.
Her older sister, Raquel, is a Brazilian federal judge.
Her mother, Vania Bundchen, starred with her in a Victoria's Secret ad for mother's day. Her father also made a commercial with her, for credit card company Credicard.
Chosen by Brazilian magazine IstoeGente as the "most powerful woman in Brazil".
Ranked at number 43 on New York Magazine's list of the "123 Reasons to Love New York City", because she lives in New York.
After Gisele carried one bag made by British designer Luella Bartley on the catwalk, all the papers ran pictures of her with it, and this created a phenomenon. The company thought they might sell a few, but suddenly they had waiting-lists everywhere for what was already being called the "Gisele". The success of the Gisele bag propelled Luella into the highly lucrative accessories market.
Gisele was considered for a role on the movie 'Charlie's Angels: The Movie' . The director McG wanted someone outside from the United States to play the role of Alex Munday, which ended with Lucy Liu.
Gisele appeared in more than 7,000 magazine covers around the world. The only woman who made more covers was Princess Diana.
Gisele made her first international fashion show for british designer Alexander McQueen, who once named her as "The Body".
The 2004 TV ad of her line of shoes was shoot on Brazilian famous "Sambódromo", on Rio de Janeiro.
Gisele will be the face of a new campaign to protect the Amazon's Xingu River from deforestation and pollution. The campaign is called "Y Ikatu Xingu", which means "clean and good Xingu water", in the native Kamaiura language. Gisele wants "to tell the world that the Amazon's waters are in danger". The Xingu River extends about 1,700 miles through the southern Amazon, including Brazil's first indian reservation, the 2.8 million-hectare (6.92 million-acre) Xingu National Park. The region was visited by her and ex-boyfriend Leonardo Dicaprio in 2004.
Ranked at number 1 on E! Channel's countdown of the World's Sexiest Supermodels.
Ranked at number 1 On Forbes Magazine list of the World's Most Entrepreneurial Supermodels.
Ranked at number 1 On VH1 countdown of "Today's Hottest Supermodels"
Ranked at #71 on Forbes magazine list of the 100 Most Powerful celebrities in the world, with earnings of 30 million dollars between June of 2005 and June of 2006. According to Forbes, "She's also a workhorse with 20 fashion contracts, including Ebel watches, Vogue Eyewear and Dolce & Gabbana. That's far more than any other model anywhere in the world. Her assets earned her more last year that many of the highest-paid actors on the Forbes Celebrity 100".
Offered a reward of $5,000 after her pet dog went missing. The pet was later safely found and returned but Gisele never gave the reward.
Gisele was the fourth model in the history to grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, in 2000, with the title "The most beautiful girl in the world".
She has hosted the VH1 Fashion Awards and appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
Former head of Elite Models, John Casablancas, has had tiffs with Bündchen; he once famously claimed that her infamous breasts were fake and that she has slept her way to the top.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}
She waved the chequered flag for the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Her debut as an actress came in the 2004 movie Taxi. The film failed miserably at the box office and at present Bündchen seems to be entirely focused on her enormously successful modeling career, rather than pursuing other film roles. She appears to have made an exception, however, to take the part of Serena in the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada

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