With brilliant blue eyes, and the bodacious curves that have come to be associated with Brazilian mannequins, Isabeli Fontana “oozes sex appeal,”as Vogue has said. Glamour is her signature, and she dots her I’s and crosses her T’s with her lavish lashes and pouty lips. Isabeli Bergossi Fontana was born on July 4, 1983, in Curitiba, in the Paran region of Brazil. By the time she was merely 12 years of age, Isabeli told her mother that she wanted to become a model.

In 1996 she made it to the finals of the Elite Model Look when she was just 13 and in the following year she moved from Brazil to Milan, Italy. In 1999, at the age of 16, she appeared in the Victoria's Secret lingerie catalogue. The shoot caused controversy, as Victoria's Secret stated that they would not use girls younger than 18. But such controversy helped, rather than harmed, Isabeli's prospects, especially in an industry that worships youth to extremes. Soon after the Victoria's Secret shoot, she was signed by Versace, Ralph Lauren and Valentino and became a fixture in the Paris and Milan shows, a model for celebrated designers from Versace to Valentino, and cover girl for more than her share of high-profile magazines.

She appeared in international editions of well-known magazines like Vogue, Marie Claire and Elle, and also worked on a campaign for M. Officer, a hot, up-and-coming design house in Brazil, in which Isabeli was photographed in provocative poses that kept everyone guessing. She was also one of the models to appear in the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition in 2002 and 2003.

Isabeli Fontana is one of many successful models -- including Gisele Bundchen, Ana Claudia Michels and Adriana Lima -- to come out of Brazil in recent years. But few can match her meteoric career path. She has represented houses with deeply diverse outlooks―from Versace to Balenciaga, and Roberto Cavalli to Calvin Klein. She is also the face of both Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb fragrance and Revlon’s Flair.

If anything, this stunning ascent has taught Fontana to be realistic. Although she enjoys modeling immensely, she doesn't pretend that the youth-obsessed industry isn't without its flaws. With this in mind, she's already making plans for when she trades in her outlandish runway getups for more subdued business attire.

As a youth, Fontana attended Catholic School in the Portão district of Curitiba. She is often seen making the Sign of the Cross in footage. She is a non-practising Roman Catholic. She was married to model Álvaro Jacomossi but they divorced in 2004. Their son, Zion, was born in 2003. Fontana married actor and model Henri Castelli on December 10, 2005 and their son, Lucas, was born on October 23, 2006 in São Paulo. Fontana and Castelli divorced in 2007.She was engaged to Rohan Marley but the engagement ended in September 2012.

Isabeli now lives in New York with her fianc, fellow model Alvaro Jacomossi. Despite the hustle and bustle of her new home, Isabeli doesn't get caught up in Manhattan's flashy nightlife. She goes to movies with Alvaro (though she's not big on TV) and enjoys music, especially her "three R's": rock, reggae and rap.

With a promising career and a comfortable lifestyle, a model on the verge of superstardom could lose her head. Not so for Isabeli. Knowing that the career of a model is a short one, she's already looking to the future. At such a young age, Isabeli's still got a lot left in her. Yet even as her appeal peaks, she'd rather spend an evening listening to music or going to the movies with her fiance than whooping it up on the town. She's even thinking of taking up acting, though she doesn't have the time to take classes yet. Isabeli is also prudent enough to invest some of her modeling earnings so that she can buy a house in Alvaro's hometown. But whatever she may do later on, Isabeli doesn't want to cut herself off from modeling completely.