Gisele's first steps, and contact with the fashion world

She lived with her family in Horizontina, the interior of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, and she has never though of becoming a model. She loved to play volleyball and believed that this could become her future. She was very tall and skinny.

At 13 (in 1994), together with her two sisters and some friends, she took part in a course for models to improve her walking posture, because the ball of debutants (coming of age ball), a tradition in her hometown, would be next year.

The course finished with an excursion to Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. During the trip, in one of the São Paulo malls, the modeling scouts (who were waiting for the excursion there) liked her and invited her to come to their model agency.

The rest of the class went to the amusement park while Gisele, after being promised to go there on some other occasion, went with her mom, who accompanied them on their trip, to the model agency.

After the visit, caving in to the insistence of the agency‘s staff who said that she had a profile for the modeling business, she had a book of her pictures made and came back home waiting to see what would happen.