Valeria Mazza

By Sara Templeton

Every once a while a celebrity, a model, a film star, a construction worker comes along and changes the way one sees these glitzy professions.

Valeria Raquel Mazza, is an Argentinean fashion model yet is not one of these people.

However she is quite sexy, in an attractive South American kind of way, and has landed contracts for various big name fashion labels, criteria which make her the perfect candidate for Fashion & Beauty.

She was strutting her thang in the same era as models like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and Elle MacPherson, a time when the Internet was a worthless tool for nerds and pop music was transcendent.

Born in Santa Fe, Argentina, on February the 17th in 1972, the Aquarian rapidly rose to fame thanks in large part to her genetic code.

At the age of 16 (or was it 13?) Valeria Mazza was already turning heads left, right and centre, and the story goes that a hairstylist by the name of Roberto Giordano 'discovered' her, presumably at his salon.

Making enough money to pay her way through a course studying occupational therapy, her big break came in 1996 when she lander the front cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue alongside Tyra Banks wearing an appalling leopard skin bikini.

What followed was a number of high profile advertising campaigns with fashion houses such as Guess and Versace.

She has also modeled for America's hugely popular lingerie line Victoria's Secret, not to mention companies such as Escada Sport.

As her profile exploded and everyone wanted her to model their spring/summer lines, she gained contracts with Elite in Paris and New York and Elite Premier in the UK.

Her glossy magazine exploits are too numerous to count, but she scored the covers of Vogue, Elle and Glamour without even breaking a sweat. 

Another big gig for Valeria Mazza was a spokesmodel for the MTV series House of Style - always a good way to boost one's career in mainstream fashion circles.

She married Alejandro Gravier in 1998 to whom she now has a daughter and three sons. 

The South American businessman wooed her after she was on a shoot in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, when she attended a fund raiser.

Alejandro Gravier went on to manage Valeria Mazza's career, and during her peak she was estimated to be earning around US$8 million per year. Can you say cash money? Hello!

The 5'10" tall Argentinean beauty has dwellings in various international hot spots including Argentina, New York, Paris, and Uruguay. Perhaps property development will be her next career move?

But just recently it appears that having her career and finances managed by her husband may not have been in her best interests, as both Mazza and Gravier are now facing possible jail time over tax fraud.

As they say in Stalingrad, greed begets greed...

Valeria Mazza and her husband have been accused by the Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos - the Argentine tax office - of tax evasion.

Reports suggest South American power couple, once the toast of the town, could be slammed by a US$2 million bill and possible jail time after "irregularities" were detected over a three year period from 2002.

Though she may have fallen from grace in a most public manner, it's not like her contemporaries like Naomi Campbell survived the early '90s unscathed either.

Since she retired from modeling Valeria Mazza has been a doting mother to her brood and has developed her own cosmetics line. And though it's not for virtuous reasons, she is back on the front page once again.