8) Alessandra Ambrosio
Alessandra Corine Ambrósio is a Brazilian model. Ambrosio is best known for her work with Victoria’s Secret and was chosen as the first spokesmodel for the company’s “PINK” line. Ambrosio is currently one of the Victoria’s Secret Angels and has modeled for brands such as Next, Armani Exchange, Christian Dior, and Ralph Lauren.
Ambrosio serves as an ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Ambrosio was also selected by AskMen.com as Number 2 out of the “Top 99 Most Desirable Women of 2008”. In 2012, she came in 6th on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $6.6 million in one year.
Ambrosio was born in Erechim, Brazil on April 11, 1981. Her parents own a petrol station. She has Italian and Polish ancestry. She enrolled at a modelling class at the age of 12, and at the age of 14, she was one of 20 finalists for the 1996 Elite Model Look national competition for Brazil. Ambrosio was always insecure about her large ears, and at the age of 12, she had cosmetic surgery to have her ears pinned back, though two years later she suffered complications. In 2006, she appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, and said that the surgery was a bad experience and has discouraged her from ever getting plastic surgery again.
When Ambrosio was 12 years old, she started modeling classes,and then began modeling for Dilson Stein at age 15. Competing in Brazil’s Elite Model Look competition started her modeling career in earnest. Her first notable modeling job was the cover of Brazilian Elle magazine. Elite passed along some of her Polaroids to Guess which led her booking the Millennium GUESS? campaign. She has since appeared in advertisements for brands like Revlon, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren, as well as the Pirelli Calendar. She has walked the catwalks for designers such as Prada, Chanel, and Oscar de la Renta.
She has appeared in numerous international magazine covers, including Cosmopolitan, Elle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Ocean Drive, Vogue and the only model to appear on the cover of Glamour in the United States in 2006.In 2004, Ambrosio launched her line of swimwear called Alessandra Ambrosio by Sais, a division of Rosa Chá. It sold 10,000 units in only its first month on the market. Ambrosio was the face for the UK company Next and starred in their first television campaign in 12 years. On the July 2009 cover of Marie Claire, Ambrosio appeared in a spread with Sacha Baron Cohen to promote Baron Cohen’s 2009 film Brüno.
Ambrosio, became the face of Brazilian sportswear brand Colcci costarring with Ashton Kutcher in a steamy denim ad. She was ranked No. 5 on Forbes’ The World’s Top-Earning Models list, with an estimated earnings of $5 million over the year 2010–2011. In October 2011, Ambrosio became Vogue’s blogger, commenting on her wardrobe by posting one photo of herself each day for a month. On August 13, 2012 she appeared in the London 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony as part of Rio de Janeiro’s Handover show
By 2004, she was selected as the first spokesmodel for the Victoria’s Secret “PINK” line In 2005, she walked the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show runway wearing lingerie made entirely out of candy. In the 2008 edition of the Fashion Show, she walked the runway three months after giving birth to her first child, and opened the show the following year in 2009. The 2011 show saw her wearing the heaviest wings (30 lb) ever made for the show. In 2012, Ambrosio was chosen to wear the “Fantasy Bra”. The Floral Fantasy Bra, created by London Jewelers, features amethysts, rubies, sapphires and diamonds (including a 20-carat white diamond in the center), all set in rose and yellow gold, according to InStyle. There’s also a matching belt adorned with more than 5,200 precious stones.
Ambrosio has made several television appearances, notably a cameo as herself on HBO’s Entourage; The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn; Late Night with Conan O’Brien; A guest judge on Project Runway season 2: Team Lingerie and twice on The Tyra Banks Show. In 2006, she had a cameo on the box-office hit movie, Casino Royale appearing briefly as Tennis Girl #1. Ambrosio guest-starred on How I Met Your Mother (episode: “The Yips”) on November 26, 2007 with her fellow Victoria’s Secret Angels Adriana Lima, Selita Ebanks, Marisa Miller, Miranda Kerr, and Heidi Klum.
She is often cited by the popular media as one of the world’s sexiest women. As an Angel, she was chosen as one of People magazine’s annual “100 Most Beautiful People in the World” in May 2007.
Ambrosio has been engaged to businessman Jamie Mazur since 2008. The couple have two children: daughter Anja Louise Ambrosio Mazur (born August 24, 2008) and son Noah Phoenix Ambrosio Mazur (born May 7, 2012). She is the National Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Alessandra Ambrosio said “80 percent of the time I’m on some beautiful island in a bikini. But I’m working and everybody else is on their honeymoon!”.
Whether she’s dressed up in candy or just being altogether angelic, the very spicy Alessandra Ambrosio is easily among the modeling world’s most beautiful women. A regular on the annual list of the AskMen Top 99 Most Desirable Women, she’s also one of the highest-paid ladies in the industry as well. Perhaps most familiar to men as a resident Victoria’s Secret Angel since 2004, she’s also graced the cover of countless magazines, while making memorable stops in movies (Casino Royale) and television (Entourage and How I Met Your Mother). Besides adding credence to the theory started by Gisele Bundchen that only undiscovered supermodels live in Brazil, Ambrosio is now a proud member of the Unofficial MILF Modeling Club where she’s proudly flaunting off her post-baby shape to eager industry observers and her many male admirers around the world.
Except for some pinned ears that resulted in botched plastic surgery, Alessandra Ambrosio is all-natural and all the better for it. Besides her Brazilian heritage, perfect skin, gorgeous eyes, and 34-25-34.5 post-pregnancy figure, pretty much everything she does not only makes men envious, but also makes women extremely jealous. Need an example? Her diet consists of eating “whatever I want,” which often includes chocolate and usually starts with her favorite breakfast of an egg, cheese and bacon sandwich with cappuccino on the side.
Unfortunately, ABC News mocked Ambrosio by saying that her new body makes her look like “a pre-pubescent teenager,” but we think this might be related to some hard feelings over her losing her entire 40 pounds of pregnancy weight in just two months. Don’t blame her — blame the Brazilian Butt Lift.
Besides munching on bacon and eggs at dawn, Alessandra Ambrosio has an exciting mix of guy-friendly interests like surfing and skydiving to go along with her admiration of the personal styles of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Stevie Nicks. We can only imagine how much fun it would be to join Ambrosio on an exotic tandem skydive while singing classic punk rock tunes before a romantic bikini breakfast of bacon and chocolate. Unfortunately, the divinely lucky Jamie Mazur has already beat us to it.
A professional model since her teen years, Alessandra Ambrosio has just entered her thirties, but has already amassed a lifetime of modeling accolades and a multi-million dollar annual paycheck. Having enjoyed the industry exposure that comes from a decade-long association with Victoria’s Secret — including stints as an Angel and a spokesmodel for Secret Pink — she also has enough prestigious magazine covers and photo spreads to start a small library. With a roster of collaborators that includes names like Calvin Klein, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior, Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, and Mario Testino, Ambrosio is among the best and also one who only works with the best.
The proud owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Alessandra Ambrosio would like to parlay her incredible modeling success into other areas, with entertainment being one major possibility. Having already made select TV and film appearance (and more importantly, filmed a Hummer commercial with Regis Philbin), Alessandra Ambrosio would like to keep climbing the acting ranks until she’s able to work with her favorite directors Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton and her acting crush Johnny Depp. If the whole acting thing doesn’t work out, then there’s always medical school. No sarcasm here. Alessandra Ambrosio also aspires to be a cardiologist, but we must say we’re concerned about how many heart attacks she might cause.
Alessandra Ambrosio’s path from bright-eyed trend-follower to beautiful trend-setter started at age eight when she engaged in regular model dress-up sessions with her sister. A young admirer of beauties like Kate Moss and Helena Christensen, Ambrosio was also a fan of Karen Mulder and after seeing the model on a magazine cover, she knew exactly what she wanted to be when she grew up. Within a few years, Ambrosio was taking classes in modeling, but her teenage insecurities temporarily got the better of her. While her skinny frame lent itself to a model’s body, she felt that her ears were too prominent and went under the knife to “fix” them. Complications resulted two years later, but fortunately, they didn’t derail her pursuit of a modeling career.
At age 15, Alessandra Ambrosio bravely entered the 1996 Look of the Year Competition, which was presented by the Elite Modeling Agency. She didn’t emerge victorious, but just a year later, the agency came back to offer her a professional contract, anyway. Following her first magazine covers for Elle (Brazil), Marie Claire (Brazil) and Harper’s Bazaar, Ambrosio hit pay dirt in 1999 as a hired gun on a campaign for Calvin Klein Jeans and a Paris and New York runway model for Christian Lacroix and Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti.
Now working with the full backing of Elite, her agency boldly sent a few choice modeling shots to GUESS, who selected her as the face of their 2000 Millennium campaign alongside Ana Beatriz Barros, another Brazilian model who helped her learn English. As a Guess Girl, like Laetitia Casta and Anna Nicole Smith before her, Alessandra Ambrosio became a famous face and a hot modeling commodity. Soon, esteemed photographers like Steven Meisel (for Gap), Anette Aurell (for Elle) and Richard Avedon (for Wonderbra) were lining up to shoot her and fashion innovators like Revlon and Oscar de la Renta were even quicker to sign her up to exclusive deals.
In 2001, Alessandra Ambrosio walked her very first runway show for Victoria’s Secret. It would serve as the beginning of a long-term association with the retailer, which would culminate with her selection as the spokesmodel for the company’s 2004 line, Secret Pink, and her recognition as one of their exclusive and oh-so-glamorous Secret Angels. As part of the thrill of modeling for a company specializing in lingerie, she got the chance to star in TV commercials for the brand and also pose in a custom-made 2005 outfit that was created completely with candy. Bonus perks to Alessandra Ambrosio’s increased industry relevance included a cameo as a tennis player in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig and a guest appearance as — who else? — herself on a 2007 episode of Entourage.
After being recognized by People as one of the 100 Most Beautiful People in the World and gracing the cover of GQ in June 2007, Alessandra capped off the year with a pair of major achievements. First, she cracked the top five model earners in the world with an annual pay rate of more than $6 million. In addition to that, she joined Camila Finn, Gisele Bundchen and a small crew of Brazilian models for a Mario Testino-photographed editorial for Vanity Fair.
In 2008, all eyes were on Ambrosio’s belly as she became pregnant with her first child. Following the birth of her daughter, Anja Louise Ambrosio Mazur that August, she still found time to join the rest of the Victoria’s Secret Angels for the September 2008 cover of British GQ and the company’s yearly fashion show two months later. Slimmed down and still one of the modeling elite, Alessandra Ambrosio joined comedic genius of the moment, Sacha Baron Cohen, for a Borat-themed British Marie Claire cover in the summer of 2009. A year later, she would hit the runways of Paris for Prada, for a special appearance that saw her adding sex and sassiness to the “librarian look.” As a model who especially enjoys the chance to play characters on the runway, it was a perfect way for Ambrosio to celebrate her continued success as an industry darling.
In 2012, Alessandra gave birth to her second child, Noah Phoenix Ambrosio Mazur, and once again was back on the catwalk within weeks looking as sexy as ever.
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