Gizele Oliveira – Too Hot to Handle

Brazilian beauty Gizele Oliveira is ready to give that other Gisele a run for her money

- Photographs by Gilles Bensimon. Text by Jordan Riefe

As a Victoria’s Secret runway model, Gizele Oliveira is wearing a much lighter wardrobe these days than when she began modeling at age 16. That was back in Vila Velha, Espirito Santo, Brazil, where she used to try on wedding dresses in her uncle’s shop, later modeling them for the locals.

“I loved it!” she recalls. “I always loved being in front of the cameras since I was little. And even though I was super shy I was somehow comfortable taking photos. I did a couple bridal shoots and runway shows for him in my hometown and I realized that this was what I wanted.”

A couple of years later she was in a shopping mall watching the local runway shows when she was scouted by My Mother Agency. She modeled in her hometown until she felt ready to take her talents to the big leagues. But to jump off into larger markets like Europe and the US she would have to at least learn some English.

“So I came to the US, 19 years old with a hundred dollars in my hand,” she laughs. “I spoke no English but had a dream to become a successful international model.” No problem. She learned English in Miami through her American boyfriend and in no time at all landed her first ever international cover, for