From 2008 to 2014 the Frisian model Doutzen Kroes, born in 1985 in the village of Eastermar in the Netherlands, was a Victoria's Secret Angel. She was the second Dutch model to receive the title, after Karen Mulder, and in 2014 Forbes ranked her the second-highest-earning model in the world.
Snapshots sent to Amsterdam, 2003
As a child Kroes wanted to be a speed skater, a serious ambition in Friesland. Modeling began instead in 2003, when she sent snapshots to Paparazzi Model Management in Amsterdam. In New York she was signed by DNA Models.
Her career moved fast. In 2006 she became a L'Oreal Paris ambassador, a contract she still held years later. By July 2007 Forbes listed her 14th among the highest-earning models, at about 1.5 million dollars a year.
Doutzen Kroes and the Victoria's Secret runway
She first walked the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2005, three years before she signed as an Angel. From then until 2014 she was a regular in the lineup, though not every year. In 2008 the company gave her wings, and she kept them until 2014.
Her earnings followed. Forbes placed her fifth in April 2008, at about 6 million dollars, and she held fifth place from 2009 to 2012 with 6 to 6.9 million a year. In 2014, her last year as an Angel, she rose to second with about 8 million dollars. An earlier version of this page dated that ranking to 2013; the Forbes figures put it in 2014.
When Victoria's Secret revived its runway in 2024, Kroes returned to it, and she walked again in 2025.
A Dutch lingerie line: Hunkemoller, 2016
After leaving the Angels, Kroes took her lingerie work home. In 2016 she became a spokesmodel for Hunkemoller, the Dutch lingerie chain founded in Amsterdam in 1886, and launched a collection with it called Doutzen's Stories. For a Dutch model the pairing was obvious, and it gave the chain a face that its customers already knew from the American shows.
Her other contracts ran in parallel. In 2014 she was the face of Calvin Klein's Reveal fragrance. In 2011 she made her film debut in the Dutch period drama Nova Zembla.
Causes on the record
The old version of this page listed a string of campaigns against animal products and beauty standards. Those claims could not be matched to sources and have been removed. What the record does show is narrower. Kroes has been an ambassador for Dance4Life, which runs HIV and AIDS prevention education for young people, and for "Praat mar Frysk", a campaign that encourages people to speak West Frisian, the language of the province where she grew up.
Last updated
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org: Doutzen Kroes
- en.wikipedia.org: List of Victoria's Secret models
- en.wikipedia.org: Hunkemöller