Trans Model Valentina Sampaio the New Face of Armani Beauty

Trans model Valentina Sampaio is the new face of Armani Beauty, a coup that follows her historic Sports Illustrated and Victoria's Secret gigs, the Daily Mail reported.

Sampaio is the first trans model to fill the role for Armani Beauty, the Mail noted, just as she was also "the first trans model to appear on the cover of Vogue Paris in 2017." Added the Daily Mail: "She has also graced the cover of a number of other magazines, including Elle."

Calling her selection by Armani Beauty "a great milestone, and a personal dream come true" in a statement, Sampaio declared herself "grateful to Armani beauty for embracing diversity, enabling creative expression, and empowering individual beauty," the Mail recounted.

"The 22-year-old, who is from Brazil, joins the likes of actors Cate Blanchett, Ryan Reynolds, Nicholas Hoult, and fellow models Barbara Palvin and Madisin Rian as an ambassador of the Italian beauty brand," the Daily Mail's news article detailed.

"It's appropriate that Sampaio's first campaign with Armani is for the brand's new lipstick collection, named Lip Power, because lipstick is the first beauty product she fell in love with as a young child," Elle noted.

"Red lipstick is one of the few beauty products I remember my mom using," Sampaio told Elle, going on to say that "a red lip symbolizes celebration, femininity, and beauty."

Perhaps her most groundbreaking achievement was when she became the first trans model to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

As previously reported at EDGE, Sampaio has used her status as a glamor icon to decry anti-trans violence, which is even higher in her native Brazil than in the United States.

Sampaio's recipe for a career as littered with firsts as her own?

"You have to be first to accept, love, and respect yourself," the trailblazing model told Elle. "You have every right to exist as you truly are. Believe that you are capable of being and creating whatever you want."