Daniela Pestova was born on October 14, 1970 in Teplice, Czech Republic. While living under communist rule, she was fortunate enough to come from an upper class family, and by the time she was 19 years old, she was discovered by the Madison Modeling Agency's Dominique Caffin in Prague. Although she had originally planned to pursue a degree in education, after being noticed going into a theater, Daniela was asked to enter a modeling contest. Not surprisingly to onlookers, the 5' 11'' Daniela won the contest and was called to Paris to sign up with Dominique's modeling agency. The rest is modeling history.