At the age of nine, she began going to modeling auditions. Jovovich was discovered by Gene Lemuel when he shot test photos of her and later showed them to Herb Ritts in LA.. The next day Ritts booked her for the cover of Lei, an Italian magazine. After Jovovich booked Lei she was signed by Prima Modeling Agency then Richard Avedon hired her for Mademoiselle. Avedon was head of marketing at Revlon at the time, and chose Jovovich to appear with models Alexa Singer and Sandra Zatezalo in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In 1988, she made her first professional model contract. Jovovich was among other models who gained controversy for becoming involved in the industry at a young age.
Later, Jovovich made it to the cover of The Face, which led to new contracts and covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Since then, she has graced over one hundred magazine covers, including Seventeen, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, and InStyle. Her modeling career has included various campaigns for Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Damiani, Donna Karan, Gap, Versace, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Coach, Giorgio Armani, H&M, and Revlon. Since 1998, Jovovich has been an "international spokesmodel" for L'Oréal cosmetics. She also had a minor cameo in Bret Easton Ellis' novel Glamorama, a satire of society's obsession with celebrities and beauty.
In an article published in 2002, she was said to be Miuccia Prada's muse and in an article published in 2003, Harpers & Queen magazine claimed Jovovich was Gianni Versace's "favourite supermodel". In 2004, Jovovich topped Forbes magazine's "Richest Supermodels of the World" list, earning a reported $10.5 million. In 2006, Jovovich was picked up by Spanish clothing line Mango as their new spokesmodel and is currently featured in their ad campaigns;[33] she can also be seen in advertisements for Etro. She has noted that "Modeling was never a priority" and it instead enables her "to be selective about the creative decisions [she] make[s]
