Gisele Bündchen is the world’s most famous supermodel since walking in her very first big show, Alexander McQueen, in 1998. But in her revealing new memoir, Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life (out today), Bündchen says that her life-changing moment on the runway almost never happened.
In the book, she writes that she was 18 years old at the time of the McQueen show and fresh to the world of runway modeling.
“This was my first big international show, and I had no idea how it worked,” the now 38-year-old writes.
She was hired to model three looks total. She walked the runway in the first two outfits “without any problem,” she says. However, she noted, “it was definitely fewer clothes than I’d ever worn on any runway.”
For the third look, her last for the show, she was asked to wear a fishtail skirt and nothing else — meaning she would have to walk completely topless.
“I began to cry,” she writes. “I had no idea what to do. Mostly, I thought about how disappointed and embarrassed my parents would be. I tried to hold back my tears, but they just kept coming down, and the black feathers glued to my lashes began coming unstuck.”
Luckily, the show’s makeup artist, the legendary Val Garland, swooped in and painted her with white makeup to create the illusion of a top.
“If Val hadn’t shown up just then, I seriously doubt I could have walked the runway. I remember thinking that if anyone took photos of me, at least my parents wouldn’t be able to recognize me in my black wig.”
Culled from People
Emeh Achanga,the CEO of the Miss Petite Nigeria Brand is a lawyer turned blogger. She is very passionate about writing, with several publications and awards to her credit .She is currently working on publishing a collection of short stories which are basically a memoir about her exciting true experiences.
