Ève Salvail

Born: Matane, Canada, 1971

Ève Salvail was born in 1971 in Matane and has become one of the most memorable models of all time.

While working as a model in Japan in the early 1990s Ève made the dramatic decision to shave her hair and have a Chinese dragon tattooed on to her head.

When Ève went to get the dragon tattooed on her head, the tattoo artist persuaded her to go with the drawings original size instead of scaling it down.

“He wanted to do it the original size it was pictured, which basically took up my whole head. I said fine, but it was so painful. It took four hours, I was crying so hard my head was shaking and he had to stop several times.”

The tattoo turned out to be worth the pain as Jean-Paul Gaultier spotted her and thanks to her unique look he propelled Ève to international success. Ève graced the covers of many of the top fashion magazines from Elle, Marie Claire and Wired.

Ève has also appeared in films and music videos across her career, she played herself in ‘Pret a Porter’ and appeared in Zoolander and a music video for Lenny Kravitz.

In 2007 Ève appeared on the Tyra Banks show ‘Coming Out Stories’ and came out publicly, she also appeared on “America’s Next Top Model’ alongside Tyra to talk about how she became such a successful super model.

Recently Ève made a prestigious return to modelling appearing in a shoot for a Jean-Paul Gautier  exhibition in 2011 in Montreal and going on to walk for his 2011/2012 haute couture fall collection in Paris. For this appearance she shaved her head again, returning to her iconic bald, tattooed look when she was a Gaultier muse in the mid 90s.

Ève Salvail Biography