Gisele Bundchen is founder of Sejaa Skincare. She is the world’s most powerful supermodel is also a natural skincare entrepreneur. She has been named as second World’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneur by Forbes for the year 2013.
In August 2011, Bündchen ranked 60th on the Forbes list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. She ranked third on the The 20 Youngest Power Women of 2011 List at age 31.Bündchen and her husband Tom Brady were named by Forbes magazine as the World’s Highest Paid Celebrity couple in 2011, with combined annual earnings at $76 million. This was higher than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Beyonce and Jay-Z. In Auguest 2012 she was 1 of 4 fashion people and the only model to be ranked on Forbe’s list of “The World’s Most Powerful Women” at #83. She ranked in Forbes top ten of “Entertainment’s Highest-Paid Women” 2012 list, ranking at #8 with $45 million.
In July 2007 Forbes magazine named her the world’s top-earning model, with an estimated total of $33 million in earnings in the previous 12 months. By 2008, with an annual income of over $35 million, she continued to dominate the Forbes list of the world’s highest-earning models, and appeared on the magazine’s list of the Top 20 Richest Women in Entertainment. During 2009–2010, she was the top earning supermodel, earning an estimated $25 million. In 2010, she retained the top spot as Forbes’s highest-earning model, with a take-home pay of $25 million. On May 2011, Forbes ranked her as the world’s top-earning model for the fifth consecutive time, with an estimated $45 million over the previous 12 months. Her earnings climbed $20 million over the previous year, thanks to an economic boom in Brazil, coupled with a 10 per cent surge in the value of the Brazilian real against the dollar.
In 2000, Bündchen was dubbed the “Boobs from Brazil” for inspiring the 36,000 breast enhancement surgeries performed that year in Brazil. In 2006, Elle magazine surveyed the American leading stylists and asked them to name the star whose hair was a favourite for their clients. More than 50 percent gave Bündchen the title of best hair in Hollywood. In February 2008 a survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) asked the question, “What influences do celebrities have on the decisions patients make?”. The survey was sent to more than 20,000 plastic surgeons in 84 countries. Bündchen was among the most frequently mentioned celebrities. Bündchen won the abdomen and hair categories and took second place in the breasts category. 2008 saw a black-and-white photo of Bündchen, shot by Irving Penn, auctioned for $193,000 (£96,000) alongside images of other models and celebrities, including Carla Bruni. Gisele’s fetched by far the most on the night.
She was voted second place on Vanity Fair’s world’s most beautiful poll in 2009. On January 2011, Bündchen came in first in the most desired female body on the 14th Annual Famed Hottest Looks survey, compiled by Beverly Hills plastic surgeons Dr. Richard Fleming and Dr. Toby Mayer. Even after giving birth in December 2009, her body was the most requested by the doctors’ patients. “Different body types are represented on the list because most women are shaped differently and want to look naturally beautiful,” explained Dr. Fleming. “Some women want the lean look like Gisele .”
In 2011, AskMen.com revealed their annual “Most Desirable Women” list. Bündchen, along with Angelina Jolie and Beyoncé Knowles, are the only women to have made the list every year for ten years in a row, singer Beyonce in a 2011 Harper’s Bazaar interview named Gisele as one of her fashion inspiration stating that “I always admire Victoria Beckham and Gisele Bündchen. Their style is modern but always classic.” A designer the Tibi Spring/Summer 2012 fashion show at New York Fashion week in fall 2011 explained, “The inspiration is taken heavily from the ’90s—a freshly scrubbed Gisele from the pages of Vogue—clean, crisp, sporty looks and relaxed styles you want to live in.” Vogue editor Anna Wintour calleded her the “model of the millennium,” and the magazine called her “The return of the sexy model”. Rolling Stone declared her “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” in 2000 and Vanity Fair published an article titled “… And God Created Gisele” in 2009. In 2012 The 26th edition of Casa Cor in Brazil, one of the world´s biggest decorating, landscaping, and architecture events, paid tribute to Gisele with a wood sculpture in her image. She was ranked #9 on Men’s Health Magazine’s list of The Hottest Women of 2013. In 2013 GQ Magazine listed her among The 100 Hottest Women of the 21st Century.
After C&A Brazil hired Bündchen as a spokesmodel and began airing television commercials, sales increased by 30 per cent. In 2012 The Hollywood Reporter stated Bundchen became C&A’s biggest booster in Brazil and even helped with European sales. In 2001, Bündchen launched Ipanema Gisele Bündchen, her own line of flip-flop sandals in association with the official Ipanema brand of flip-flops. In three years, sales topped $30 million, with a portion of proceeds going to green causes. Forbes put her 53rd on their 2007 list of the most powerful celebrities. Ipanema Gisele Bündchen made an estimated £152 million with over 250 million pairs sold in 2010. Bündchen told Vitals Magazine in 2005 that she has been involved in business and investing in real estate since she was 18 years old. She has acquired real estate in New York, Los Angeles, and São Paulo. She claims modeling is only 40 per cent of what she does, and the rest is contracting. On 1 May 2007, it was announced that Bündchen had ended her contract with Victoria’s Secret. According to a stock market analysis in 2007, when Gisele terminated her agreement with Victoria’s Secret, which is owned by Limited Brands Inc. (LTD), Limited was selling for $26.80 per share. Soon thereafter, the stock declined to $18.36 per share, a 31.5% drop.
American economist Fred Fuld developed a stock index to measure the profit performance improvement of companies represented by Bündchen compared with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. According to Fuld, the Gisele Bündchen Stock Index was up 15 per cent between May and July 2007, substantially surpassing the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was up just 8.2%. In 2010, Bündchen introduced her own skin care product line, named Sejaa Pure Skincare which according to Forbes has been in talks with Shiseido for over a year on an acquisition deal. In early 2011, Procter & Gamble’s Pantene shampoo sales increased 40 per cent in Latin America after Bündchen started representing the product.[93] Edward Razek, chief marketing officer of Limited Brands, who worked with Bündchen during her Victoria’s Secret career says, “She’s an international icon who can also move product, from shampoo to couture.” The lingerie brand “HOPE” increased turnover by 40 per cent after contracting Bündchen as its representative. According to Grazia daily UK in January 2012, her lingerie label “Gisele Bundchen Brazilian Intimates”, has already proved to be a sell out in Latin America, Portugal, Japan, and Israel. Bündchen currently owns a hotel in Brazil, land in Brazilian city Trancoso, a villa in Costa Rica, a house in Brentwood, California, and she is currently building a home in Santa Monica.
In February 2012 the website Vogue.it stated “the Brazilian model is the King Midas of fashion. Everything she touches turns to gold and companies that have invested in her have reaped the rewards.” An Esprit public awareness campaign featuring Bündchen helped raise consumer awareness of the Esprit brand, with a 9 percent rise in Germany, and a 19 percent rise in China. She was ranked No. 61 on Forbes’ Most Powerful Celebrities list in 2012. In May 2012 she was ranked fourth on the World’s Most Powerful Latino Celebrity list by Forbes.
In 2013 she ranked #5 among the most successful Brazilian Business Women list. Forbe’s reported that, the products that bear her name… in Brazil – including Grendene’s Ipanema sandals, a clothing and accessories line with C&A, a lingerie line with Hope and her own line of beauty products, Sejaa – generate roughly $1 billion per year in sales. Bundchen gets a percentage of that, plus she still collects big fees to lend her image for the likes of Chanel, David Yurman and P&G.
Bündchen donated $150,000 to Brazil’s Zero Hunger program. She designed a limited necklace edition for Harper’s Bazaar, crafted by jewelers Gumuchian Fils. These necklaces were sold to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She contributed an autographed iPod loaded with a personal playlist to be auctioned off, with all proceeds benefiting Music Rising, a campaign founded in 2005 to replace lost or destroyed instruments of musicians in the Gulf Coast Region after the hurricane disasters. In 2006, Bündchen became the face of American Express Red, part of the Product Red initiative. A portion of earnings from this credit card are donated to HIV/AIDS victims in Africa. In 2009, she appeared on 30 covers of the international issues of Elle magazines wearing Product Red clothing and posing with products from companies who support the same cause.
She has helped raise money for cancer research and treatment, victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami for which she donated a check for $1 million to the earthquake fund created by the Japanese Red Cross Society sending $250,000 to the Pacific Tsunami Fund and Save the Children and another $250,000 to a Japanese Red Cross earthquake fund. Bündchen opened The Luz Foundation in 2007, a grant-making organization advocating the empowerment of young girls. She donates a percentage of her earnings to help with their projects. In 2008 Bündchen auctioned a collection of diamonds for charity. The collection features a 6-carat diamond ring worth $120,000 – $150,000, and a 3.35-carat Sabbadini diamond ring worth $15,000 – $20,000. A percentage of the proceeds from the auction will go to Russell Simmons’ Diamond Empowerment Fund, whose mission is to raise money to support education initiatives in countries where diamonds are a natural resource. In 2010 she wrote a $1.5 million check to the Red Cross to aid the relief effort in Haiti after seeing the devastation done by the earthquake.
Bündchen made a surprise visit to patients at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. In 2011, Bündchen was added to The Giving Back Fund’s list of celebs who made the largest donations to charity. In June 2012 she helped launch a beauty contest in Brazil, Top Kufa Brazil, to find new faces in Brazilian favelas. This was the first national competition of beauty played exclusively by candidates between 18 and 22 years who live in underserved communities, created by the Central Union of Slums and Pantene, the brand which Gisele is the face of.
Bündchen dedicates part of her website to environmental issues. She launched a “green” blog in 2008 with the aim of “reflecting on socio-environmental issues that we can do something about”. In May 2009, she co-hosted the Rainforest Alliance’s annual gala to honor leaders in sustainability. Bündchen has also supported a variety of environmental causes, including clean water initiatives, environmental sustainability, and preservation of South American rainforests. In 2007 she took part in eBay Giving Works, eBay’s program dedicated to charity listings online auction for the WWF, with 100% of the proceeds going to the World Wildlife Fund’s global conservation initiatives, especially those involved in the fight against climate change. In 2008 she appeared on the cover of US magazine American Photo to promote her Forests of the Future project for the reforestation of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The initiative, which was set up with SOS Mata Atlantica in 2004, has planted over 1 million new trees in Bündchen’s name to start reforestation of the Brazilian rainforests. In May 2011 Bündchen was named Harvard’s 2011 Global Environmental Citizen in recognition of her eco-efforts. In November 2011, she was awarded Greenest Celebrity at the 2011 International Green awards at the National History Museum of London. Each year the Green Awards honors a celebrity who has been the most creative and innovative in the approach of sustainability of the environment. An online public vote took place and Bündchen was the winner, beating Paul McCartney and Miguel Bose.
In 2008 Bündchen and Brady dished out turkey and all the trimmings unannounced to over 400 job trainees in Roxby Massachusetts for Goodwill Industries International. On 20 September 2009, she was designated Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In January 2012, Bündchen made her first official visit to Africa as UNEP Goodwill Ambassador. Bündchen chooses a different charity each year to which proceeds of sales from her sandals are donated. The 2011 donation went to ISA – the Socio-environmental Institute. In January 2012, Bündchen visited Kenya on a goodwill mission to improve energy poverty. She spent a day with a family in a village in Kisumu County and helped them with tasks such as carrying firewood to their hut – while discussing the dangers of using firewood inside homes that do not have energy. She danced with the locals and visited various homes, as well as teaming up with UK NGO Practical Action during the course of her stay. In April 2012 she donated money for AIDS research. On the eve of World Environment Day 4 June 2012, Bündchen, who is Goodwill Ambassador of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), went to Rio de Janeiro to plant the first of a series of 50,000 trees in a degraded area.
On 24th of September 2000, Newsweek published an article “This Year’s Model” which emphasized a craze in modeling culture in Brazil because of Gisele. “In Brazil, where beauty is as highly valued as futebol or the samba, modeling has become an obsession. Modeling courses, makeup workshops and beauty contests are all the rage. Crash diets are in vogue. A dozen big-name modeling agencies like Marilyn have set up shop in São Paulo and deployed an army of talent scouts to beat the pavement for new faces. And from the smallest parish in the southern grain belt to the swank boulevards of Sao Paulo, kids are practicing their posture and perfecting their pouts. Capricho, a glossy teen magazine, recently asked 1,100 Brazilian teenagers if they wanted to become fashion models. Eighty-six percent said yes. The reason for this craze stands 1.77 meters tall and has smoldering blue eyes. Her name is Gisele Bundchen–known to all as Gisele–and she is the most celebrated Brazilian since Pele.” it stated. they went onto claim; “It would be difficult to overstate Gisele’s impact, not only on Brazil but on the modeling industry as well. Just two years ago the celebrity model looked like an endangered species. The public grew so weary of the pampered princesses that they were pushed off magazine and tabloid covers by pop singers, movie stars, even politicians. Then came Gisele. “She had breasts and hips and great hair,” says James Scully, booking editor of Harper’s Bazaar. “Men want her. Women want to be her. We haven’t had that since Cindy and Naomi.” And so the fashionistas swarmed to Brazil for Gisele clones. Fashion Pygmalions are scouring the hinterlands for beauties in the rough. Models with nondescript accents are pretending to be Brazilian. “Everyone asks me if I know her,” says Brazilian clothing designer Alexandre Herchcovitch, whose popular label, Zoomp, is selling even better in the age of Gisele. Other Brazilian companies are capitalizing on the babe from Brazil as well. When the giant beverage company Ambev wanted to add some oomph to its New York Stock Exchange debut last week, they called Gisele—not Greenspan—who tossed Ambev caps and blew kisses. Says Herchcovitch: “It’s a good time to be Brazilian.” To be sure, Brazil’s modeling business has changed dramatically since Gisele was a schoolgirl. In the mid-’90s, there were five agencies nationwide. Now there are 11, with branches all over the country and a legion of aggressive scouts.” Bündchen pioneered the “horse walk”, a stomping movement created when a model picks her knees up high and kicks her feet out in front.
In Spring 2012, she won three major spring campaigns – Versace, Givenchy, and Salvatore Ferragamo. In early 2012, it was announced that she would be the face of Banco do Brasil’s first global ad campaign, with the tagline “Bank of Brazil. From Brazil to the world. From the world to Brazil.” April 2012 Time magazine listed her among their All-TIME 100 Fashion Icons list of the 100 most influential fashion icons since 1923. In August 2012 in honor of the 120th anniversary of Vogue, they spotlighted the ten women who have been immortalized for the number of times they’ve graced the coveted cover of the magazine, Gisele being on the list with 11 covers total. As of 2011, there have been 29 persons who have appeared on the covers of Vogue Paris, Vogue Italia, American Vogue and British Vogue; Gisele being one of them.
In 2012 she declined an invitation of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, the COB, to participate in the closing show alongside other country stars such as Marisa Monte and Seu Jorge. In 2012 she made 5,600 appearances in commercials in her native Brazil. In August 2012, it was reported that she replaced Kate Moss as the face of David Yurman. She was shot by famous photographer Peter Lindbergh for the Fall 2012 campaign. At the end of 2012 she has appeared on 120 Vogue covers, more than Kate Moss and Linda Evangelista. She also holds the record for the most Brazilian Vogue covers of all time.
In February 2013 it was announced that she became the face of Chanel’s new make-up range, Les Beiges, which campaign was shot by Mario Testino. Her first time ever as a spokesperson of the brand. It was reported later that she beat Rihanna and other celebrities to star in the campaign, being chosen by Karl Lagerfeld himself. Experts estimate that she will be paid $4 million for a six-month contract.
Bündchen is a sixth-generation German Brazilian, born in Três de Maio, Rio Grande do Sul, to Vânia Nonnenmacher, a bank clerk pensioner, and Valdir Bündchen, a university teacher and writer who are both of German descent. Bündchen was born and raised in Horizontina, a southern region in Brazil where there is a large population of German ancestry. She grew up with her five sisters—Raquel, Graziela, Gabriela, Rafaela, and her fraternal twin Patrícia, her junior by five minutes. She speaks Portuguese as her native language, in addition to Spanish and English. She studied German in school.
In 1993, Bündchen joined a modeling course with her sisters Patrícia and Gabriela at their mother’s insistence. The following year, Bündchen was discovered by the Elite modeling agency at a shopping mall in São Paulo while on a school excursion. 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 Elite Model Look world contest, held in Ibiza, Spain. She then moved to São Paulo to launch her modeling career. In 1996 Bündchen had her first New York City break at Fashion Week.