From the hinterlands of Argentina to the spotlight of the catwalk, where she was quickly consecrated as one of the top supermodels of the 1990s, Valeria Mazza's charisma is still fully intact today
It all started in 1986, when Roberto Giordano, famous Sicilian hairstylist who had found fortune in South America, discovered an astounding 14-year-old: blonde, blue-eyed, long-legged. Thanks to Giordano's eye (which recognized a vague resemblance to Claudia Schiffer), Valeria Mazza, teenager from Rosario, Argentina, was soon embarked on the path to the Olympus of fashion, in the meantime launching the rich pageant of South American supermodels.
She immediately got a cover shoot for the Argentine edition of Elle. But 1996 was her breakout year. She was everywhere - Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, doing runway shows for Krizia, Les Copains, Roberto Cavalli, Giorgio Armani and Valentino. And above all Italian television, where she became an ultra-popular fixture after having hosted the Festival of San Remo with Pippo Baudo.
The devastatingly gorgeous Valeria managed her Mazza her rapidly growing career with the acuity of a businesswoman, riding the crest of the wave for a good 10 years, invariably named along with the supermodels who dominated the fashion scene during those years, all of them sharing a unique ability to assert themselves as icons of beauty and style.
Unlike many of her colleagues, however, Valeria was also able to build a career outside the rather self-referential world of fashion. She has appeared in successful films like Paparazzi of 1998, and hosted national TV shows like Scommettiamo che... of the same year, managing to make that most elusive transition from the runway to the television soundstage. A choice which, years after her retirement from modeling, has enabled her to remain in the eyes and hearts of the larger public.
Valeria, it must be said, was lucky to have been born with a beauty that seems immune to the passage of time. At 38 years old, judging from her most recent photos in a bathing suit, she is virtually indistinguishable from the young girl who once posed for Sports Illustrated. Yet in the meantime the South American siren has had four children (Balthazar in 1999, Tiziano in 2002, Benicio in 2005 and Taína, born on April 22 of 2008) with her husband Alejandro Gravier, whom she met in Argentina and married in 1998 when she was still just a fledgling model.
Marco Gentili (editor Lella Scalia)
Published: 10/15/2010 - 09:58
SOURCE: https://www.vogue.it/en/magazine/people-in-vogue/2010/10/valeria-mazza?refresh_ce=