Tavares was born in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, and she was appearing in local shows at the age of nine, and at just 13 she won the "Elite Look of the Year." A year later she was invited by agents to go to São Paulo to pursue a modeling career. In 1998, at the age of 17, she was already appearing on the covers of fashion magazines – L'Officiel Paris, Deutsch and U.S. Marie Claire and Vogue Paris – having signed up with the Marilyn Modeling Agency in both New York City and Paris. She would later go on to appear in numerous other popular magazines, including ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Allure, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Since 1998, Tavares has been walking down catwalks for the world's biggest designers, including Chanel, Emanuel Ungaro, Versace, Blumarine, Chloé, Christian Lacroix, Prada, Salvatore Ferragamo, Valentino, John Galliano, Sonia Rykiel, Yohji Yamamoto, Hervé Léger, and Missoni. Tavares has helped promote brands like Versace, Chloé, Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton, Mano, Nine West, Elite, Zoomp (Brazilian), and she was a top figure in the Ralph Lauren Spring 2000 collection, as well as the colorful Gap Jeans ads, also in the spring of 2000.