Miranda May Kerr (born 20 April 1983) is an Australian model best known as one of the Victoria's Secret Angels since mid-2007. She was the first Australian addition to the Victoria's Secret campaign and was the face of Australian fashion chain Portmans and David Jones Limited. Kerr entered modeling in the fashion industry in her early teens after winning a 1997 Australian nationwide model search hosted by Dolly magazine and Impulse fragrances.

Kerr was born in Sydney but raised in Gunnedah, New South Wales, a small rural town. Her parents are Therese and John Kerr, and she has a younger brother named Matthew. During her childhood, Kerr "raced motorbikes and rode horses on her grandmother's farm." She describes her early life in the Australian countryside as "very grounding ... there wasn't any pretentiousness and no one really cared what you were wearing. You could just be you." Her family moved to Brisbane to allow Kerr and her brother to experience city life. She graduated from All Hallows' School and planned to study nutrition before pursuing modeling.

At age thirteen, Kerr entered and won the 1997 annual Dolly Magazine/Impulse Model Competition. She was flown to Sydney a week before her fourteenth birthday to shoot for the magazine. Upon Kerr's win, local media expressed "concerned outrage" at her young age. The controversy raised concerns about the glorification of young girls within the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries. Some conservative media outlets claimed her Dolly shoot (including images of a fourteen-year-old Kerr in bathing suits) constituted a form of child pornography. Of the press, Kerr said: "In the media at the time they were trying to cling on to anything remotely to do with pedophilia. Dolly is a magazine for teenage girls, not for old men. And I was fully clothed! Doing a winter shoot! They just made something out of nothing."

Kerr suffered emotional distress following the death of her high-school boyfriend during her final year of schooling. Eventually overcoming the trauma, Kerr signed to Chic Management's Sydney division. She received considerable commercial exposure after a series of beachwear ads predominantly for Australian surf chain Billabong, in which Kerr modeled surf brands Tigerlily, Roxy, Billabong Girls and One Teaspoon. This increased her profile in the Australian and Asian markets, after which Kerr relocated to New York.


Information & Images Courtesy: Wikipedia and www.mirandakerr.net

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