Adriana Lima

Lima was born on 12 June 1981 in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Many sources stated that "Francesca" is her middle name, but Lima herself denied this in an interview to W Radio Colombia in 2010, and confirmed that her name is only Adriana Lima. Her parents are Nelson Torres, a carpenter, and Maria das Graças Lima, a social worker. Her father left the family when she was six months old, and Lima was raised only by her mother. Lima was raised in the Castelo Branco neighbourhood of Salvador. She has stated that prior to starting modelling, she had wanted to pursue a career as a paediatrician.

Lima is of Portuguese, Native Brazilian, African, Japanese, Swiss, and West Indian descent. She personally identifies as Afro-Brazilian.

Lima speaks four languages: her native Portuguese, English, Italian, and Spanish. Lima never thought about being a model, although she had won many beauty pageants in elementary school. However, a friend at school who wanted to enter a modeling contest and did not want to enter alone, so Lima entered with her. Both sent in pictures, and the contest sponsor soon asked Lima to come out for the competition. Soon after, at age 15, she entered and finished in first place in Ford's "Supermodel of Brazil" model search. She subsequently entered the 1996 Ford Models Supermodel of the World contest and finished in second place. A year later, Lima moved to New York City and signed with Elite Model Management.

Lima made her runway debut at Anna Sui's New York Fashion Week show in September 1997. As a runway model, she has walked the catwalk for designers such as Rosa Cha, Blue man, Fashion's Night Out, Caio Gobbi, Fause Haten, M. Officer, Luca Luca, Liverpool Fashion, Dosso Dossi, Carmen Steffens, Cía Maritima, Agua de Coco, Lino Villaventura, Forum, Vassarette, Zoomp, Joan Vass, Cori, Emilio Pucci, Fendi, Giles Deacon, Carmen Marc Valvo, Emanuel Ungaro, Baby Phat, Giorgio Armani, Balmain, Bottega Veneta, Sportmax, Vera Wang, Valentino, Miu Miu, Givenchy, Versace, Cividini, Alexandre Herchcovitch, Jason Wu, Marc Jacobs, Christian Dior, Paco Rabanne, Victoria's Secret, Sean John, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Desigual, Cynthia Rowley, Sully Bonnelly, Anna Sui, Guy Laroche, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Yigal Azrouël, Ralph Lauren, Christian Lacroix, Escada, Nanette Lepore, Richard Tyler, Triton, and Betsey Johnson.

Her first magazine cover was Marie Claire Brazil in September 1998. Her first Vogue covers were the Italian Vogue Gioiello in September 2000, on their 20th Anniversary issue, and Vogue Brasil the next month.

Lima became a GUESS? girl in 2000, appearing in that year's fall ad campaign. She also appeared in the book A Second Decade of Guess? Images.

Lima continued to build upon her portfolio, doing more print work for Maybelline, for whom she has worked as a spokesmodel since 2003 to 2009. Also in the same year, she appeared in the company's first calendar and did an ad campaign for Swatch. Lima has also worked for notable fashion brands bebe, Armani, Versace, De Beers, Elie Saab, Colcci, Schiaparelli, Prada, Intimissimi, GUESS?, LOEWE, H&M, Bulgari, Miu Miu, DKNY, Emporio Armani, Givenchy, Keds, Mossimo, Jason Wu, Balmain, Blumarine, Marc Jacobs, Maybelline, BCBG, and Louis Vuitton.

She also appeared on the covers and in the editorials of other fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, Grazia, Cosmopolitan, Interview, GQ, W, Arena, V, Esquire, Garage, and French Revue des Modes.

Her April 2006 GQ cover was the highest-selling issue of that magazine for the year. It was also one of the all-time best selling issues of the publication. The magazine named her "The World's Most Voluptuous Virgin".

In 2006, Lima ranked as the fifth highest paid supermodel. Between 2007 and 2008, she ranked as the world's fourth highest paid supermodel by Forbes Magazine.

In 2008, she again fronted the cover of GQ, this time attracting a record number of visits to the publication's website. She also appeared in the 2005 Pirelli Calendar and became the face of Italy's cell phone carrier, Telecom Italia Mobile, a move that earned her the nickname, "the Catherine Zeta-Jones of Italy."

In February 2008, Lima was featured on the cover of Esquire, re-creating the classic 1966 Angie Dickinson cover on Esquire's 75th anniversary. She appeared only in shoes, diamonds and gloves for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair celebrating 20 years of supermodels with her fellow Victoria's Secret Angels. In February 2008, she was chosen to be the face of Mexico's Liverpool department store chain and launched the partnership with a press conference, runway show, and a summer campaign.

Lima returned to the high fashion runway in 2009, walking for Givenchy. In the same year, after visiting Turkey, she signed a contract with Doritos to appear in print campaigns and television commercials which began airing in Turkey that April. She was also one of the faces of Givenchy for the Fall/Winter 2009 season.

In 2011, Lima signed a deal as a spokeswoman for Megacity by Votsu, a Brazilian social gaming company, to appear in their commercials. Lima has worked with the most established photographers in fashion such as Annie Leibovitz, Juergen Teller, Bruce Weber, J.R. Duran, Paolo Roversi, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matidin, Vincent Peters, Mario Sorrenti, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Steven Meisel, David Sims, and Mario Testino.

She became the face of Donna Karan's spring 2012 advertising campaign, which was accused of having racist undertones due to a photo featuring Lima posing in front of huddled local Haitians.

In early 2012, Turkish clothing company Mavi Jeans hired Lima to be the face and spokesmodel for the brand. In the first quarter of 2012, her advertisement campaign increased sales by 50%. It also provided a 20% increase in stores and online traffic. Furthermore, her television commercial, which was watched by 28 million people, became a trending topic at Twitter and the number of people on Mavi's Facebook page increased by 20%. Store officials at Mavi say the clothing Lima wore in the ad campaigns was met with so much demand that they ran out of stock. Due to her success rate with the company, the European and Russian branch of Mavi decided to make her the global face of the brand.

Lima was photographed by artist Richard Phillips on the famed Copacabana sidewalk in Brazil for Visionaire no. 62 which was released in mid-2012. In an interview, Phillips talks about Lima: "She's so powerful, really an entity, in a way." Then added "You meet her and there's a generosity of spirit and very friendly and easy manner, and then all of sudden, the lights go on, and you realize you're working with this absolutely extraordinary person who's capable of creating these powerful images."

For the second time, she was featured in the Pirelli calendar by setting a record of being the first pregnant woman to be ever featured in the calendar for the 2013 edition.

In July 2013, Spanish fashion brand Desigual announced that Lima would be the face of the brand during Barcelona Fashion Week Spring-Summer '14, following Bar Refaeli in the same role in January 2013. In April 2014, Lima was chosen as the first brand ambassador of Desigual for the brand's 30th anniversary. She has been named the "ambassador of la vida es Chula", Desigual's "life is cool" motto. Desigual marketing director, Borja Castresana, stated that Adriana "reflects our values and represents Desigual women who are confident, optimistic and full of life." The campaign was launched on April 20, 2014, with television commercials in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Belgium.

In 2013, she ranked as the third highest paid supermodel according to Forbes, with earnings of $6 million. In 2014, she ranked as the world's second highest paid supermodel with earnings of $8 million.

In June 2014, she returned to her role as a Maybelline New York spokesmodel. She had been the face of the brand between 2003 and 2009. Lima was also chosen as the new face of Jason Wu Fall/Winter 2014 campaign. Jason Wu stated about Lima, "She's sexy, and there's this feline-esque prowess that felt appropriate for the clothes. And she's got those eyes! She's like our own Bianca Jagger. Adriana is a new take on the supermodel - she's from a different era. At the end of the day, these ads are about the women and the sexiness, and I continue to choose women who inspire me."

In September 2014, Lima starred in a campaign for luxury Swiss watch label IWC alongside Karolina Kurkova.

In 2015, she became the face of Vogue Eyewear and of Marc Jacobs' fragrance Decadence. In the same year, she was ranked as the world's second highest paid supermodel with earnings of $9 million.

In April 2016, Lima became the face of Italian lingerie brand Calzedonia's Swimwear collection. In July 2016, Lima was chosen by NBC alongside fellow Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio as the channel's food and culture correspondents for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The NBC feature also showed the duo practicing in the Brazilian martial art Capoeira in the build up to the Olympic games.

In January 2017, Lima starred in the ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2017 campaign for the Italian brand Sportmax.

In 2018, Lima became a brand ambassador for Puma, and for the Brazilian-based footwear and accessories label Schutz.

In 2019, Lima was the face of Miu Miu cruise campaign, of Chopard Spring/Summer campaign. She was also the face of the Maybelline x Puma collaboration, of the Schutz resort 2019 campaign, and starred in the Palms Casino Resort commercial with others including Cardi B and Rita Ora.