Born October 14, 1970, and raised in the Czech Republic, Daniela Pestova grew up in the midst of political bedlam. Lucky she came from an upper class family and by the time she was 19 years old, she ended up getting discovered by the Madison Modeling Agency's Dominique Caffin in Prague.
Although she had originally planned to attend college and get her degree in Education, after being spotted going into a theater, Daniela was asked to enter a modeling contest. As is no surprise, considering she is 5' 11" and beautiful, Daniela won the contest and soon rushed off to Paris to sign up with Dominique's modeling agency.
In 1990, Daniela began making her mark by appearing in Guess? ads alongside Claudia Schiffer, and as is quite evident, just about every Guess? model eventually turns into a bigtime model.
Three years after being discovered, Daniela decided to move to New York - even though she didn't speak a word of English. Nevertheless, her career took off and she began appearing on the covers of such reputable magazines as Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Elle. It was in 1994 that Daniela landed a huge contract with the noted cosmetics company L'Oreal and became their model and spokesperson - obviously she had learned to speak the language by this time. As well, Daniela started modeling sexy lingerie for Victoria's Secret, as did her colleagues Stephanie Seymour, Tyra Banks and Yasmeen Ghauri. And in 1995 and 1998, Daniela graced the cover of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue.
On the personal front, Daniela is married to Tomasso Buti who, conveniently enough, was the former CEO of the flailing Fashion Café® And in 1996, Daniela gave birth to their first-born son, Yannick. Unfortunately, Daniela called it quits with Buti in 1998 and the two got divorced soon afterwards.
Also, it's noteworthy that although Daniela couldn't speak a word of English when she first arrived in the US, she did speak fluent Russian, Italian, French, and Czech.
Presently, Daniela has her own annual swimsuit calendar and plans to have a house full of children one day. Either way, it's evident that Daniela's beauty has endured through time and she is going to be gracing the covers of magazines for years to come. |
