Ines Rivero

By Sara Templeton

Like many of today's top models, Ines Rivero lives in the concrete jungle known to many as the Big Apple - or New York - regarded as one of the best-connected fashion epicentres on the planet.

But unlike many of today's top models, Ines - who rarely uses her full name Maria Ines - is a bit of a thrill seeker, with hobbies such as motorcycle riding and boxing taking up her spare time.

Though the active model currently lives in North America, if you turn the clock back by roughly three decades, you'll find that Ines Rivero grew up in the southern part of the Americas - in Argentina, in fact.

The Argentinean model was born on the 7th of June in 1975 in the city of Cordoba, and it wasn't long before her mother decided that her daughter was lacking grace. Harsh? Well, mothers do know best, right?

Therefore, at an early age, it was decided that her precocious young daughter Maria Ines should be enrolled into a ladies school.

But even in the face of this alleged 'lack of grace', Ines Rivero made herself known to the modeling world at the age of 14, when she helped out at a local fashion show.

At age 16 she was spotted by a modeling agency's talent scout and by the time she was 17 she had taken out the preliminary round of the Elite Look of the Year contest in Argentina.

By now Ines had done the hard yards and was ready for the big time - and so she moved to North America and was soon signed up with the Ford model agency in New York.

Thanks to her glowing beauty, Ines fast-tracked a number of contracts, and was soon completing work for the likes of Giorgio Armani, Saks Fifth Avenue, Romeo Gigli and Mossimo.

Her reputation kept on rising and, along with her acceptance into the fashion industry, the magazine offers were coming in thick and fast from glossy publications - she was in high demand. The glowing Argentinean graced the pages of magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, Mirabella, and Glamour.

One of her crowning moments, however, was an invitation to join the likes of Petra Nemcova, Alessandra Ambrosio, Karolina Kurkova, Eva Herzigova and fellow Argentine Yamila Diaz-Rahi as a Victoria's Secret model in 2001. She also signed an agreement with Cover Girl to be a spokesmodel alongside the gorgeous Angela Lindvall and Jessica White.

In addition to her magazine and print obligations, and of course gliding down runways wearing priceless ensembles, Ines starred in the Enrique Iglesias music clip for the song 'Esperanza'. The Argentine model is no stranger to music either, having recorded and released the album Hasta Siempre, from which she even managed to release a single, which was concerned with the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

Ines Rivero, measuring a statuesque 5'11" tall, married French artiste Ales Basseville in 1995, which lasted until 1998 when the pair filed for divorce. She later married financier Jorge Mora - to whom she is still married - and the pair have one child together.

As was mentioned earlier, Maria Ines Rivero is a keen motorcyclist and also likes to get in the ring for a few friendly rounds of boxing, and though her days of extremity are probably well and truly behind her as her family blossoms, the top model still keeps active by practicing Yoga among other things.