Emma Johnson: Stuff the boys from Brazil and their World Cup soccer skills …
June 15, 2014 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Lima, Zimmerman, Fontana and Ambrosio. No that wasn’t the mid-field line-up for Brazil’s match against Croatia on Thursday night but they are four of the fittest individuals on the planet all the same.
Because while Brazil may be known for samba, soaps and soccer the South American nation does a cracking sideline in supermodels.
Check out the runway at any top fashion show and you are sure to find a Brazilian babe or three.
And babe is most definitely the word for them because where Europe knocks out hollow-eyed teenage clotheshorses that look like they would snap in a strong breeze, when designers are looking for the sort of long-limbed, buxom, Amazonian goddesses that make men drive their cars into underwear ad billboards, it is to Brazil they turn their attention.
Look through any top Brazilian model’s resumé and you will find the world’s biggest labels, international names like HM, French Connection, Next, Guess, Maybelline… and of course – Victoria’s Secret.
When the American lingerie giant stages its legendary runway shows the Brazilian beauties take centre stage (I imagine the nation’s namesake depilatory procedure goes on a lot backstage).
Getting to don the brand’s famous angel wings is virtually a rite of passage for these Latina lovelies.
And they don’t come any lovelier than Gisele Bundchen.
With comments like “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful about what I ate, and I gained only 30 pounds” and “I think there should be a worldwide law… that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months”, the 33-year-old may be well on her way to becoming South America’s answer to Gwyneth Paltrow, but her particular genetic profile has made her one of the richest women in the world.
Hailing from Três de Maio in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region, Gisele appeared on the fashion scene in 1999 and was credited with ending the reign of heroin chic. For the past decade the mother-of-two has been the world’s highest paid supermodel and she raked in a whopping $42million last year.
But Gisele is far from the only one bringing home the big bucks.
The four women I mentioned at the start of this piece, Adriana Lima, Raquel Zimmermann, Isabeli Fontana and Alessandra Ambrosio have all made million-dollar fortunes out of their faces and figures.
In an interview with Vogue to celebrate the World Cup, Alessandro Ambrosio says: “In Brazil, the tradition is boys play soccer and girls play with fashion.”
Great news if you happen to be as lithe of limb and aquiline of nose as Alessandro.
Then again if you are not, at least you are in the right place.
Only the USA performs more plastic surgery procedures than Brazil does.
But where Botox and boob jobs are the preserve of the wealthy in North America, there are clinics in Rio that offer them at a discount and some even for free as part of the public health care system because, “the poor have the right to be beautiful too” as one revered Brazilian plastic surgeon put it. Gisele and her pals may be genetically blessed but you never know, that girl from Ipanema might not be all she seema…
