In the kitchen of her Tribeca apartment in downtown New York, one blustery afternoon in spring, Gisele Bündchen is in full domestic goddess mode: mandolin slicer in one hand, freshly peeled carrot in the other; her undone beachy waves falling over a grey cashmere sweater. With its pristine marble countertops, minimalist oak-panelled floor-to-ceiling cabinets and sweeping views of the Financial District, she might only spend a few nights each year at her Manhattan home, but it is immediately clear I have floated into supermodel land.
“What kind of tea can I get you?” she says, flinging open her pantry. Boxes are fastidiously organised by herb type: fennel, chamomile, peppermint. Although she hasn’t touched coffee in years, her energy levels would suggest otherwise. Bündchen is full of beans, speaking non-stop in delighted exclamation points and positive affirmations, bouncing around the room like she’s just slammed a double espresso.
Her charming Brazilian-Portuguese accent is at full lilt: “I always say nature’s our pharmacy. If the kids are sick, I’ll make a fresh ginger tea with lemon and a whole pot of manuka honey. It’s really the best thing you can drink!” Because I confess to feeling hormonal, she suggests I try a raspberry-leaf brew. “It’s really good for PMS,” she insists, then has another thought: “You know what you need? Dates! They’re full of iron. A friend of mine brought them back from Qatar for me – so much better than chocolate!”
The nutrition talk figures. Gisele – now 41, certified fashion legend, an era- shifting super who halted “heroin chic” in its tracks in the late ’90s and then went on to become the highest-paid model in the world for 15 years in a row – is now set on a new foray: cookbook author. She’s been working on a collection of personal home recipes, which promises to provide an intriguing window into precisely what fuels her famously fit family.
Accordingly, she has invited me over for lunch to sample one of her favourites: vegetable spring rolls in a gingery cashew-nut sauce. Before we get started on the main course, I ask her if I can take a peek inside the fridge (who doesn’t want to know what a supermodel eats when no one is looking?). Its contents are predictably virtuous: no bottles of bubbly, no leftover pizza. Tubs of hummus and cartons of coconut milk chill side by side on the top shelf; various packets of organic seeds (flax, hemp, chia) are lined up in neat rows, alongside a loaf of ancient grain gluten-free bread. The one item that isn’t entirely in keeping with the theme? A vat of muscle-building protein powder. “Oh, that’s Tom’s,” says Bündchen, referring, of course, to her husband, Tom Brady, 44, the legendary American footballer, as she waves the fridge door shut.
The kitchen scene is no midlife pivot. Long before the idea of self-care or wellness became common currency, Bündchen understood the power of a mind-body connection. She has always tended to her inner life. It was a lesson hard won in the early days of her career, when it seemed as if she had the whole fashion industry at her feet. Inwardly, her world was in chaos.
It was the start of the millennium, post the move from her family’s home in Horizontina, in southern Brazil, and her runway debut in London for Alexander McQueen in 1998 (one that famously came after 42 unfruitful go-sees). From there she rocketed. By the early Noughties she was a mononym, dominating catwalks, dating Leonardo DiCaprio, and a fixture on every billboard and invite list across the world: “From the outside, it looked like I had everything and I was just 22 years old. On the inside, I felt as if I’d hit rock bottom,” says Bündchen, who had been suffering from crippling anxiety and panic attacks for more than a year-and-a-half before she reached this breaking point. “I was starting my day with a mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream and three cigarettes, then drinking a bottle of wine every night. Imagine what that was doing to my mind...”
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On the recommendation of a friend, she sought the help of a naturopath, who immediately prescribed an all-encompassing detox: no sugar, no grains, no dairy, no caffeine, no alcohol, no cigarettes. The only things she could consume were vegetables, nuts and small amounts of lean meat. Suffice to say, the withdrawal symptoms were intense. “I think those were the worst migraines I’ve ever had in my life. The doctor, he was French, would call me Adrenalina,” says Bündchen, a reference to her nervous system gone haywire. Sticking to such a strict regime was never going to be easy, but, as Bündchen tells it, the alternative was pretty bleak. “I remember him saying, ‘Well, do you want to live?’ It was that simple.” Three months later and her debilitating symptoms had all but disappeared. To this day she wakes up religiously at 5am to meditate and work out.
Recalibrating her eating habits would bring her closer to the food culture she had known as a young girl growing up in rural Brazil. Before she was whisked off to Tokyo to pursue a career in modelling at the tender age of 14, Bündchen enjoyed a relatively simple small-town life. Each morning her bank clerk mother would make breakfast smoothies with avocados plucked straight from the tree in their backyard and she and her five sisters would eat rice and beans “at least five times a week”.
She has her “medicine woman” grandmother to thank for her more witchy sensibilities. “She would say that we only had to look at the sky to find our own shining star,” says Bündchen; the tiny star that’s tattooed on her wrist is a tribute to her cosmically inclined, natural remedy-loving grandma, who “had a tea for everything”. It’s why the supermodel takes a holistic approach to wellbeing where conventional medicine often falls short. “The idea that taking one pill can solve my problems has always felt wrong to me, because that was never my experience,” she explains. “If you put a Band-Aid on a cut, it doesn’t mean that it will go away.”
And yet sometimes Band-Aids really are a godsend, especially when mandolin slicers are involved. “Listen, cooking and talking at the same time, it’s an occupational hazard,” she jokes, peeling a Mickey Mouse plaster, swiped from the kids’ bathroom cabinet, over a nick on her finger. Thankfully, the most hazardous parts of the food prep are now behind us. Finely chopped carrots, apples, cucumbers and cabbage are stacked in tidy piles, ready to be wrapped in brown rice paper. The food processor is locked and loaded with cashew nuts, ginger, garlic and a dash of yuzu juice. “So this is our sauce. Smell it,” she says. I take a whiff of the nutty, spicy paste and quickly understand why these spring rolls have been such a crowd-pleaser. “You know, the idea for the book came because my friends and family would ask me, ‘How do you make that? How do you get your kids to eat this?’ You assume people know, but a lot of people don’t. I love to share things that make me happy, things to help mums who want to make healthy meals and healthy desserts for their children.”
Ever since she gave birth to her first child 12 years ago, Bündchen has made motherhood a top priority. When the family moved to Tampa, Florida, she set up a homeschool for her son, Benjamin Rein, and daughter, Vivian Lake, nine, a two-minute bike ride away from the family’s current residence. Their curriculum is one she created herself, with the help of her children’s teacher, and includes cooking and gardening. Right now, tomatoes, kale and broccoli are all thriving on their vegetable patch and the herb garden is lush with fresh basil and rosemary bushes. “We grow everything. I mean, this is their playground. Look at their faces!” she says, pulling up pictures on her iPhone. “When my husband decided he was going to play another year, I didn’t want to put them in a school, because it takes a lot to adapt to a new town. They left all their friends in Boston – and just look at what the world was going through. I needed to create a soft landing.”
The star quarterback’s decision to retire – and then famously unretire – after two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, made headline news earlier this year. In his announcement on Twitter in March, Brady credited the support of his family. “They make it all possible,” he wrote, alongside a diptych of him on the field with his teammates and his wife at the stadium with their two children and his 14-year-old son, Jack, from a previous relationship. For her part, Bündchen sees the roles they play in their partnership as complementary. “I don’t think relationships just happen; it’s never the fairy tale people want to believe it is. It takes work to be really in sync with someone, especially after you have kids,” she says. “His focus is on his career, mine is mostly on the kids. And I’m very grateful that he lets me take the reins when it comes to our family. He trusts my decisions.”
She continues, “I remember, in the beginning, he wasn’t into the idea of home birth. He was like, ‘You’re not going to do that, because you’re going to die.’” Bündchen persuaded Brady to watch several videos on home birthing before he relented. “I made it clear that this is my body and I’m going to decide how I give birth.” She describes the 18 hours of labour with Benjamin Rein as “the most beautiful experience of my life”.
Over the years, Bündchen has helped to evolve the way her husband thinks about food, too. According to her, he was far from an adventurous eater when they first started dating, more than 15 years ago. “Tom only ate nuts and grapes when I met him. It was crazy,” she says. “He’s not a person who dives deep, who researches. I’m very much like that.”
Before long, I’ve polished off an entire plate of her spring rolls, each one slathered in her cashew-nut sauce. They’re certainly much healthier than the takeaway version I’m used to – and tasty at that. If Bündchen is anything to go by, then I could be just one plant-based meal away from reversing the ageing process. “I think I feel better in my forties than I did in my twenties and not just physically, because we’re all told that life is over at 40 and I feel like I’m just beginning,” she says.
One last cup of raspberry-leaf tea for the road and it’s time for me to gather my things: Bündchen is heading to a fitting for her Vogue shoot with Steven Meisel. She slings on a chic cashmere Maison Margiela coat and a gently distressed denim Chanel handbag, and follows me to the door. Before I leave, Gisele pushes a small bundle into my hand. “Here, take these, for dessert,” she whispers, smiling. “The dates.”
By the time the elevator arrives, I’ve scoffed the lot. She’s right, the dates are sugary sweet and delicious. Maybe I don’t need that half-eaten bar of chocolate after all...
Gisele was photographed for the June 2022 issue of British Vogue by Steven Meisel at Casa Cipriani in New York. Styling by Edward Enninful. Luxury faux florals by Diane James Home. With thanks to set designer Mary Howard, Hook Studios and Hook Props
