Karolína Kurková

Karolína Kurková is a Czech model whose fifteen-year run with Victoria's Secret, Vogue covers across multiple national editions, and runway work for the major European houses placed her among the most photographed faces of the early twenty-first century. Born in Děčín, Czechoslovakia, on February 28, 1984, to Czech parents (her father a former first-division basketball player), she was discovered at age fifteen by Czech modeling agent Alex Czarnecki.

Within months of signing she walked her first international shows in Milan and Paris and appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia photographed by Steven Meisel. By 2001 she was opening and closing shows for Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, and Versace, and had become a fixture of American Vogue editorials shot by Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino, and Patrick Demarchelier.

She debuted in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2000, was promoted to Angel status in 2005, and continued to walk the show through 2010, modeling the brand's annual Fantasy Bra in 2002 in a piece reported at five million dollars. She was the youngest model to wear it. Vogue placed her on its May 2001 cover as the face of "the next supermodel," and she was repeatedly named one of the highest-earning models of the decade.

Beyond catwalks she has acted in films including The Diary of a Teenage Girl, hosted the Czech version of Got to Dance, and co-founded GST World Wellness, a wellness venture launched in 2018.

The given name Karolína is the Czech feminine form of Carolus, ultimately from Germanic karl, "free man." She has carried it as a woman who turned a small-town discovery into a global modeling career.