The Globe's Reigning Symbol of Female Perfection Talks About

Tag : Globe In Steel

It's possible to locate the exact instant when Gisele Bündchenbecame the globe's reigning icon of feminine perfection: an April7, 1999, shoot in the studio of the legendary photographer IrvingPenn. That shoot marked the demise of fashion's so-calledheroin-chic phase and the advent of a new, commercial era, in whichmodels would dream of walking the runway for Victoria's Secret asmuch as they would for, I'm spitballing here, Alexander McQueen.Penn, 81 at the time, photographed the 18-year-old Brazilian gazingenigmatically over her shoulder, her hair thickly tangled, her bodycompletely nude. In its July 1999 issue, Vogue used theblack-and-white photo to illustrate an editorial called "The Returnof the Curve.' Gisele would appear on five of the magazine's coversin the next year and would ignite an international fever forBrazilian models, and a more localized one in Hollywood forflip-flops and radioactively golden skin.