Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen (born July 20, 1980) is a Brazilian supermodel who is constantly acclaimed as the most famous and the highest-paid model in the world. Since her introduction onto the fashion scene in the '90s she has appeared in countless billboards and magazine covers, as well as numerous TV and print ads. Bundchen is currently the face of more than 20 brands from different countries such as United States, Russia, Brazil, Italy, France, Mexico, Spain, Turkey, South Korea, Germany and Switzerland. According to Forbes, she made $33 million on 2006, adding to her estimated $150 million fortune. She currently holds Guinness World Records as the "world's richest supermodel".

Modeling career
Originally, Gisele wanted to be a professional volleyball player and considered playing for the Brazilian team, Sogipa. While in school, Bündchen was so thin that her friends used to call her "Olívia Palito" (Portuguese for Olive Oyl, Popeye's skinny girlfriend), and "Saracura" (a type of Brazilian shorebird). An oft-told story of Bündchen's "discovery" is that she was scouted by a modeling agent at age fourteen while eating a Big Mac at a local McDonald's.
Prior to that, in 1993, a then-14-year-old Bündchen joined a modeling course with her sisters Patrícia and Gabriela at her mother's insistence. The course, instructed by Dilson Stein, was designed for teenagers aspiring to become models. The following year, Stein took Bündchen, along with some other girls to São Paulo to give them an opportunity to walk in a big city and to be evaluated by Brazilian Elite agents. She was subsequently selected for a national contest, Elite Look of the Year, in which she placed second – Claudia Menezes, from Bahia, took first place. Bündchen placed fourth in the world contest, held in Ibiza, Spain. In 1996, Bündchen moved to New York City to begin her modeling career, debuting at Fashion Week.

Gisele's debut on the cover the July 1999 edition of Vogue Magazine, and the accompanying editorial entitled, "The Return of the Curve" is widely viewed as marking the end of the fashion's "heroin chic" era. She would grace the cover again in November and December on her way to winning the VH1/Vogue Model of the Year for 1999, and a January 2000 cover shot would give her the rare honor of three consecutive Vogue covers in a row. In 2000 she was the fourth model in history to grace the cover of Rolling Stone, when she was named "the most beautiful girl in the world".

Since her debut, she has been the face of a variety of advertising campaigns including several seasons of Christian Dior, Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Missoni, Versace, Céline, Givenchy, Bvlgari, Lanvin, Guerlain, Valentino, Ralph Lauren, Earl Jean, Zara, Chloé, Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, and Victoria's Secret. Bündchen is also the face of several Brazilian brands like Vivo, Brazil's leading mobile company, Multiplan, Colcci and Credicard. After C&A Brazil hired her and started their television commercials, sales increased by 30%.

In May of 2006, Bündchen signed another multi-million dollar deal, this time with American giant Apple Computer. She starred in an advertising campaign to promote the new Macintosh line through the Get a Mac advertisements.

She has her own line of sandals with shoes company Grendene, called Ipanema Gisele Bündchen. Forbes puts her on 53rd of their list of the most powerful celebrities of 2007 due to the success of her popular shoe line, Ipanema. Custom Ipanema flip-flops sell for as much as $230 a pair. She is also the owner of a hotel in the south of Brazil, the Palladium Executive.

Bündchen consistently works with photographers, like Nino Munoz, Mario Testino, Steven Meisel, Nick Knight, Mert and Marcus, Rankin, Annie Leibovitz, Karl Lagerfeld, Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti and Patrick Demarchelier, among others.

Bündchen has also been on the covers of most of the main fashion magazines around the globe like, W, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Allure and many international editions of Vogue, as well as style and lifestyle publications like i-D, The Face, Arena, Citizen K, Flair, GQ, Esquire and Marie Claire. She has also been featured in broader market publications such as Time, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Newsweek, Veja.
On May 1st, 2007 it was announced that Bundchen had ended her contract with Victoria's Secret. The New York Post's Page Six had reported that Bundchen left Victoria's Secret because it wouldn't raise her $5 million-a-year salary.