67 HAVEN’T I SEEN YOU
SOMEWHERE BEFORE?

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” must be one of the oldest and corniest lines that air stewardesses have to put up with, but SAS air hostess Gia Bremberg put up with it more regularly than any of her colleagues ever did.

It might have been because she fitted the stereotypical image of a Swedish woman; Gia was slim, tall, attractive with long, golden blonde hair, which when loose fell past her shoulders and almost to her waist.

However,the real reason was that lots of the men who asked her the question had indeed seen her before. Gia was the original blonde who washed her hair in a bucket by a well for the Timotei shampoo adverts, shown around the world between 1982 and 1991.

Gia was an 18-year-old schoolgirl when she answered an advert in her local Stockholm paper and won the job that changed her life. Unlike many models in other ads, Gia was a regular user of the brand:

“I’ve never dyed my hair and have only ever used shampoo and conditioner, then left it to dry naturally. And yes, it was always Timotei back then – I still remember its smell, like freshly-cut grass,” she said when interviewed years later.

She was embarrassed if the ad came on when others were around: “I never knew where to look. But my mum was always really proud.”

The money was good and helped Gia to buy her first apartment in Stockholm, but it was never enough to let her quit her full-time job. So she saved her annual holiday leave to film the ads.

One man who didn’t use the “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” line was her husband Mattias. He didn’t recognize her, so Gia chose not to mention her role as the Timotei girl at first.

“He was really shocked when I told him about appearing in the ads. My hair was far shorter by then, so he never would have guessed. He remembered the [girl in the] adverts well, but of course never imagined he’d end up marrying her.”

And the moral is that it pays to keep your feet on the ground (metaphorically that is). What’s your plan B?