Gisele Bündchen is the highest-paid supermodel in the world and one of the most recognizable, having appeared on over 1,200 magazine covers. She is also an active philanthropist who champions social and environmental causes.
Bündchen was born in the small town of Horizontina, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil to a bank clerk pensioner and a writer/sociologist. Initially she wanted to pursue volleyball, but her mother enrolled Bündchen and her sister in a modeling course to instill better confidence and posture.
As a reward for having completed the course, the girls were taken on a trip to celebrate and 14-year-old Gisele was discovered by Elite Model Management at a shopping mall. In 1998, after 42 rejections, she was chosen by Alexander McQueen for his runway show in London. That same year, Bündchen posed for Missoni, Chloé, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino, Gianfranco Ferré, Ralph Lauren, and Versace campaigns.
Her success was also a departure for the industry. Vogue credits her as having ended the popular but controversial “heroin chic” era of modeling, which featured models who were gaunt, pale, disheveled, and intentionally unhealthy looking.
Soon Bündchen became a household name. Her accomplishments include landing on the cover of 37 international Vogue issues, 11 consecutive Dolce & Gabbana fashion campaigns, and a five-year contract with Victoria’s Secret, just to name a few.
Bündchen is as passionate about activism as she is about her modeling career, focusing on the environment and the well-being of others. For a decade she has backed tree-planting reforestation initiatives in Brazil and also launched a clean water project in her hometown. She has donated $150,000 to the Zero Hunger Program, which allows people to access enough food to meet basic nutritional needs. She has been vocal about helping HIV/AIDS victims by supporting The Red Cause, created Ipanema Gisele Bündchen Sandals (which focuses on environmental causes related to the Amazon River and Rainforest), and founded the Luz Foundation, which strives to empower young women both mentally and physically through its sponsorship of various self-esteem-building programs. She told the Belfast Telegraph, “Everyone has an hour in their day to go and do something for somebody else, I don't care how busy they are.”