I remember when Gisele Bundchen really “arrived.” She was just starting to date Leonardo DiCaprio, she was all over the Victoria’s Secret catalog, she was getting all of these major fashion magazine covers in Europe and America and suddenly it seemed like she was everywhere and she had “the look.” It was all nose, perfect body and great hair and she was so striking and fresh-faced. Twenty years later and… she’s still got a great body. She’s still a beautiful, striking woman. But lord, the plastic surgery.
The plastic surgery had long been rumored – there were her trips back home to Brazil, one of the best countries to have good plastic surgery, and she was subtly tweaked over the years. Then, in 2015, she wore a burqa to hide herself as she entered a famous French plastic surgeon’s office in Paris. She disappeared for a month and came back to tighter eyes and a boob job. Since then, I genuinely feel like she’s been getting annual “updates” on her face, to the point where her eyes and lips look positively Kardashian-esque.
I bring all of this up because Gisele covers the latest issue of Vogue Hong Kong. They gave her three covers and she looks remarkably… different. It kills me that we’re all collectively not supposed to say anything. Lordy. I mean, it’s her business. I get that. But it’s always so odd that her entire brand is about being “natural” and “organic” everything and women just need to work hard on their diets and fitness and that’s it. Meanwhile, the lip work is so distracting! She’s still got great hair though. And a great figure. I know she works hard on all of that, which is why the Real Housewife-esque face work is so strange.
Covers courtesy of Vogue Hong Kong.
Interesting… I don’t see it though? I think her face looks the same? Maybe very minor tweaks but not like is elaborated on in the article…? Genuinely confused
Agreed. She looks the same to me.
I can particularly see it in the eyes and a bit with the top lip. She doesn’t owe us an explanation but she shouldn’t sell the average person this whole natural lie.
And that, to me, is the problem with celebs and their surgery. If they said, “yeah, I’ve had this and that done” then cool. But to have such extensive work (I don’t think Gisele’s is really extensive, I’m talking in general) and then try to gaslight us by denying work is ridiculous. I think Gisele looks good.
Same and there is nothing at all Kardashian about her. Granted, I don’t ‘follow’ her by any means and most of what I hear about her is Tom Brady adjacent, but I don’t recall her trying to sell a giant lie. It isn’t like she’s telling us she just overlines her lips.
shes said in previous interviews pregnant women gain weight because they treat their bodies like garbage disposals, pregnancy labor pains didnt hurt, etc. no benefit of the doubt that some women have horrible pregnancies & gain weight for other reasons than overeating etc. very much a superior better than most vibe.
hasnt she released skincare products? I thought i remember her doing that and to promote did a yoga class for at risk youth and commented how none of them knew who she was.
I can see that her lips are fuller and her eyes may look different, but she’s nowhere looking like a Kardashian or a real housewife.
Same. I don’t see a difference especially compared to the Kadashians. I thought she retired from modeling. Maybe it was just runway.
I just looked at old photos of her with Leo, she doesn’t look THAT different, and it’s been like 15 years. I think she’s done some tweaks for sure, but nothing Kardashian level drastic.
On the second cover with the leaves, she looks very much like herself.
Esma, I agree. She looks great and still like herself! If she’s had work done, it’s clearly subtle.
Yeah I don’t think she’s overdone it. I think she would have aged well naturally, but the work she’s had done has also been tasteful and well done.
I agree with you, Esma. Tweaked for sure (but who isn’t in that world?) but she still looks like gisele
I don’t think she looks Kardashian-esque but I can see she’s had eye and lip work done. It’s not too over the top, it’s very good work in that sense. And yes, fitness and diet are very important but let’s be honest, she just has great genes. She was always going to be tall and slender and fine-boned with long legs. That’s just luck.
Gosh, those burqa photos took me out. All sorts of messed up!
She is doing too much to her face. The second cover is gorgeous, but these photos are giving me puffy wax figure vibes.
She does plastic surgery right if you ask me, I just hope she’ll stop or get minor tweaks before going overboard. i.e. Jennifer Aniston looks tight, bloated and unlike herself and I don’t understand why people say how good she looks?
Funny you should mention Aniston. I was just thinking she’s another one that makes a big deal about being natural and all about good, clean living, but she’s obviously had so much work done she looks far from natural. Maybe Gisele will know when to stop.
Christie Brinkley is another one. It’s a shame, I think she would have aged beautifully.
I know this is perhaps mean, but I find her incredibly bland. Maybe it isn’t mean, given that her looks are her job. I can’t believe she is one of the highest, if not the highest, paid models in the world.
It’s not mean. She is bland. Supermodels used to be vivacious and she is always just languid.
I actually think that is part of the success, I agree that she isn’t striking but has strong features that can be emphasized to different ends. That blandness allows her to do some really good editorial work. She’s a canvas if that makes sense?
It 100% makes sense that she is moldable, making her versatile. Her supposed blandness makes her striking. She was a supermodel at the start of the millennium, the reference back
to the 90s is not fair since she is, as were the trends of a different time. She ushered in a different look. People criticize the waif look as if the Cindy Crawford’s, naomi’s of the past were relatable to the average woman. Even today the curvy looks that is on trend is not attainable for many.
SurelyNot & Bella you make really good points, and I appreciate the blank canvas approach. I think the ultimate in moldability is Kate Moss. David Bailey loves her, and says until the camera is on her she could be anyone on a Croydon bus, ditto his experience with Jean Shrimpton. In my opinion, Kate Moss is a chameleon but always uniquely herself and striking. Thing is, Gisele never quite hits as striking (to me) and I have to double-take to see who it is on the cover. This opinion makes me realise just how subjective beauty is and that your take is equally valid.
Yeah, I think this is why designers and photographers love working with her so much. But personally, I really prefer models with some personality and uniqueness.
Looks the same to me. I don’t see the hard plastic look that you guys see. Is is surprising that a model would be overly concerned with her looks, and use every resource she could to maintain her looks? I thought the burka story was funny because it was so damn obvious, but I didn’t feel scorn for Giselle for it. She’s always going to be judged by her appearance, and yet she’s not openly supposed to do anything to maintain her appearance so she hides. That’s totally understandable.
What’s not understandable to me is why women are supposed to look perfect (young), but are ridiculed for trying to keep their youthful exterior. We’re supposed to be “natural” but perfect. Not cake on the makeup, but look perfect. Eat burgers and fries but be skinny.
I think women feel it’s okay to hate on models because models are the outliers who actually fit these ridiculous standards we are all held to. But they are held to them, too. Their livelihoods depend on meeting these standards. Models who make money now do so through their business endeavors, not their actual modeling. Modeling is a shitty career where a tiny few can make actual money, but they have to parlay that visibility into some other endeavor in order to have staying power. Gisele has done that better than anyone.
Yes there’s hypocrisy in the Giselle’s of the world advocating “natural” while doing plastic surgery, but that’s not really a new thing, is it? To me the pictures look overly filtered more than she looks plastic.
lanne. I agree- it isn’t necessarily any physical intervention but more likely editing of her photos. There can’t be a huge demand for endless surgery, surely, when so much can be done with editing. However, I guess what must be incredibly hard for women in the public eye is the need to live up to the edited image; they have to leave the studio someday and be seen beyond the lens. This is where I feel for Kate Middleton (a rare occasion). She relies heavily on edited photography but attends functions in person and in daylight where the difference between her real self and her photos can be stark. I do believe Kate has a lot of interventions but they can obviously only take you so far, if she is anything to go by. Developments in photography and editing must be both a blessing and a curse.
Whenever I need willpower against junk food I read about her and Tom Brady’s everyday diet. Apparently their idea of comfort food is quinoa, wilted greens greens with garlic and cashew sauce. Hopefully I will get to that point where that is comfort food for me too 😂
I feel like people on this site always see plastic surgery that doesn’t exist…..
It is a cudgel that we use against certain women.
Same here. Some are obvious for sure, but others I just don’t see.
When the alleged work is so minor, I would reserve judgement on her looks until I see the unedited photos. Her varying looks could have been a result of photoshop. In her everyday life Gisele looks the same to me – a woman getting older and taking care of herself. She is a model and strive for healthy living, the need to be “perfect” in order to speak is ridiculous as it is noted in this article. Has she ever said conclusively that she is against fixing (real asking) because I think it’s a reach to connect her healthy eating and organic lifestyle to also being 100% tweak free as a supermodel.
Nothing housewife about her also, I’m not getting those vibes.
Yeah I feel the same way. Of course society pressures us to fit an impossible mold.
The work is subtle. She looks normal and her looks are how she makes a living so I don’t have a problem with it. I just wish she could be more open about it.
But as women, we are always blamed if we do, blamed if we don’t, at every stage of our lives. So she is probably not comfortable talking about her plastic surgery because of society’s fake acceptance of it, but in reality, negative judgment, of any woman who gets work done.
She actually got her most significant procedures (e.g. her rhinoplasty and her first boob job) done 20+ years ago, before she found significant success on the modeling scene. See for yourself – Google “Gisele Bundchen 1996.” Plastic surgery is not nearly as stigmatized or expensive in Brazil as it is in the US and I’m guessing she (correctly) decided it would be a great investment in her modeling career.
I don’t see that much work, definitely nothing like a Kardashian at all. A few years ago she was on a Brazilian show and in a part that she cried I noticed that maybe her face wasn’t moving super naturally, so she definitely had tweaks around the eyes and mouth. But I can only imagine the amount of pressure on her to maintain her looks, so I never judge.
Even when she was young people said she had a horse face and looked like a man when she was gorgeous in my opinion. People can be extremely mean to anyone that succeeds or has something they don’t, so in this social media age I always feel for the negativity and pressure that surrounds famous people that actually worked for their careers like she did.
As for the hypocrisy of selling a natural lifestyle and not actually living it, while I’m not a fan of it, throw a rock anyone that has never been a hypocrite. At least she is using her platform to advocate for important issues.
I think she looks fine, not pulled and shiny like Real Housewives.
while I do believe she’s had work done (significant nose job back in her early days of modeling and other tweaks since then), I think the differing looks here are the work of photoshop.
the top photo does make her look a little kardashian-esque in the eyes and lips. the second photo (in that tie-dye thing), she looks like a young Cindy Crawford and in the third, she looks more like herself.
Ok my contribution is about the cover fashion.
I would wear every one of those pieces! I’d look like me, not Gisele, but I’d sport them all summer.
I love what she’s wearing in the first photo, the blue outfit.
Not a fan. I have never been a fan. I don’t care if she has plastic surgery or not. I just don’t like her.
First photo, yikes. The most removed from her original face. Second photo, she looks like Carre Otis, beautiful model from the 90s, third photo looks most like the face we know. Could all be lighting, angles, photoshop. Either way she still looks like a typical model, all hair, long limbs, exquisite bone structure, big lips and lifeless stare. She’s had work done, but I don’t really mind. It’s her body, her motivations. But I do think it a disconnect when people like her are so vigilant about their diet, and organic food and clean living but will probably inject and indulge in whatever chemical and toxic substances comprise plastic and cosmetic work.
Def eye work and filler but well done.
It’s mainly around the eyes and lips I see it for her, though she mostly still looks like herself. I’ve really noticed in the last few years how “cat eyed” she’s starting to look, and I do think those tweaks are were you need to be careful. I get the industry puts insane pressure on women to retain a youthful look well past when it’s natural, but it’s always just one bad tweak away from not looking like yourself. Frankly, with the kind of money she has, I’d think there would be a point where you would just put up the middle finger and leave the industry like a rock star. Like…dare anybody else coming after to manage her level of success lol.
My instinct is to be negative, but why? Because I can’t stand her husband? Yep, that’s it. She looks pretty good to me. She makes me miss my young hair. But I’m not positive she isn’t telling her doctor she wants to look like Zeta Jones?
I hate her husband. So, she lost a lot of points there, IMO. She looks the same but I see the hyper-skin taught and almost unrealistically smooth and “frozen” face, if I’m being honest. Hate the clothes and styling! This looks so dated to me.
She’s had some stuff done, which is almost to be expected in her line of work, but her skin looks good and she doesn’t look like a Kardashalien