VB History

In pre school "Escola Evangélica Frederico Jorge Logemann" Gisele already was a small girl, very thin. In mid school, Gisele used to be called "Olívia Palito" (Olive Oyl - Popeye's skinny friend), "Somaliana" (person from Somalia) and Saracura (kind of snake - "trumpet-creeper"). Her school friends used to make fun of her, because she was tall and thin: "there was a time where that used to bore me a lot, make me really sad". "Gisele was a little weird" admits Roberta Wojahn, neighbor and friend. She liked to play Volleyball, and had even thought of becoming a professional, but as we saw, that didn't work out: "All she wanted to be was a volleyball player", says her mother, and Gisele confirms: "I dreamed of being Ana Moser, Fernanda Venturini" (Brasilian volleyball players), and play for Sogipa. She was a really agitating kid: "I was like a monkey. Until I was around 7 years old, I used to run on the streets in my underwear".

In 1993, Gisele, 13 years old and almost 1,70m height (5'7"), joined Dilson Stein mannequin course to correct her posture, with Patrícia and Gabriela, because her mother insisted. The course was for teenagers who wanted to be a model. In May 1994, Stein took 50 girls in a bus to São Paulo, for two reasons: to give them a chance to walk in a big city and to let them be evaluated by brasilian Elite bookers (agents). Zeca Abreu and Liliana Gomes, from Elite were there to check out the group, warned by Stein, so it wasn't a casual discover. Zeca and Liliana asked Gisele "Do you want to be a model?" and she answered "No way". "I didn't see that as a real thing. The guy was pissing me off. I just wanted to go to Playcenter".

On the next August 20, Gisele was playing Volley for Sogipa, in Porto Alegre. People from Elite "kidnapped" her and took her to the contest Look of the Year, the Rio Grande do Sul phase. She was already enrolled in the contest, and she tried to escape. With no bath she was taken to the contest, in a borrowed dress. "I got there and it was a shock. The girls were wearing make up and long dresses and I was there, dirty, wearing a kneepad. I didn't want that, I didn't want to catwalk". Gisele came between the five finalists. Then, she went to São Paulo. Her clothes were, now, a little bit more appropriated; most of them borrowed from her friends Melissa and Karina Costa. She came in second in the national Elite Look of the Year contest - Claudia Menezes, from Bahia, was the one in the first place. In the world contest, in Ibiza, Gisele came in fourth, but no one (including her), admits that as official, because she never got a trophy. In another version, she would have come in sixth. Then, Gisele started to change. "I started to like the idea of being independent".