Yasmeen Ghauri is a Canadian model of mixed descent born to a German mother and a Pakistani father. She is best known as a Victoria’s Secret Angel and was admired as a great runway model.
She was born to Pakistani Moin Ghauri and German Linda Ghauri. While her father was an Imam, a Muslim cleric for the Islamic Community of Quebec, her mother was opposed of her pursuing modelling as a career.
Yasmeen’s intriguing name and exquisite appearance comes from her lineage: Her father is Pakistani and her mother is German, and it all started for the brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty when she was 17 and still a school student.
Joseph Del Tortoon, Yasmeen’s hairdresser, suggested she should go and see a modeling agency, after he was awed by the Canadian’s radiance.
Despite her “young and rebellious” appearance, Del Tortoon saw true beauty in Yasmeen, but her parents were opposed to Yasmeen pursuing a career in modeling – whether big or small – largely due to her father’s Islamic religious beliefs.
Even in the face of her parents’ beliefs, Yasmeen persisted and, in the late 1980s, she signed a modeling contract with an agency located in Montreal. In 1990, Yasmeen relocated to the hussle and bussle of New York, where she landed modeling for none other than Versace, and it was then that people started taking notice.
Before long, Yasmeen’s star was on the rise and in the early 1990s she worked hard building her reputation, completing work for the likes of Donna Karan, strutting her stuff on the catwalks.
By 1994, and for most of the year after, she worked in Europe as well as America and it wasn’t until ‘95 that she decided to tackle print work.
Ghauri became the sweetheart of the New York and Paris fashion scene. She enjoyed fame in the early 1990s when she landed her first major cover with Elle in January 1990. Soon afterwards, she became the face of both Chanel and Jil Sander. By the end of 1990, she had appeared twice on the cover of French Elle in July and December. In September, she graced the catwalk for Gianni Versace’s show in Milan and by the next month she was walking for Chanel, Helmut Lang, Jean Paul Gaultier and Lanvin shows in Paris. Her success was duly noted and she became the face of Christian Dior and Anne Klein in 1991. In January alone, she was photographed by Steven Meisel for the cover of Italian Vogue and appeared in the Harper’s Bazaar editorial. Towards the end of the year, she appeared in the British and the Italian Vogue editorials. Photographer Patrick Demarchelier who photographed her for the Italian issue called her his favourite subject.
1992 was to be her year in modelling when she landed a contract with Victoria’s Secret and became a face of Valentino couture and Versace. Later she walked the controversial Gianni Versace ‘Bondage’ show in Milan which made fashion critics take serious note. Demarchelier photographed her again with Walter Chin for the Italian Vogue towards mid-1992.
Keenly involved in helping those less fortunate than herself, Yasmeen has supported breast cancer research fund-raising drives, and also supported a charity for saving Germany’s famous Black Forest. Today she lives with her husband and baby daughter Maya, enjoying a life well away from the media spotlight, and is said to enjoy activities such as rollerblading, skiing and creating art.