Finding the Sequel to Gisele

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on supermodel scouts who are trying to re-create Gisele Bündchen's look by hunting for new models with her exact heritage. That seems pretty harmless-of course they'd want to cash in again on something that's sold well. Their search for Gisele II is extremely specific: Brazilian girls with German and Italian ancestry, with some Russian or other Slavic blood, because the scouts say that this specific genetic cocktail "helps produce the tall, thin girls with straight hair, fair skin, and light eyes."

Scouts actually hand-pick women from a limited part of southern Brazil that was colonized by Europeans; more than 50 percent of Brazil's models come from that area, even though it's only home to 5 percent of the nation's population. Weird, right? It starts to feel like model eugenics, with taste-makers propagating only a very narrow definition of what's beautiful (or even more narrow than it is already).


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Photo Credit: WWD