"World’s sexiest daredevil" jumps off cliffs in her sartorial best

You might expect Roberta Mancino to be into fashion. After all, she is a model. What you may not expect upon first glance is that this 33-year-old is also one of the best extreme athletes on the planet and the owner of three skydiving world records.

"I really love to fly, and I can't stay away," Mancino told CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy. "I love so much how I feel when I fly. It's such a beautiful feeling of freedom."

The Italian-born beauty has been a model since she was 16, but her contracts prevented her from taking those kinds of risks. Scars don't look good on camera. So Mancino decided to become an extreme athlete with a flair for fashion. She's been dubbed the world's sexiest daredevil and has BASE jumped 250 times.

She's trying to toughen up the image of models, but also soften the image of extreme athletes.

"I think it's very important right now for our sport that we don't just push the craziness and intense part, but we should also show to people how beautiful it is," she said.

In a GoPro commercial that she produced and directed, Mancino falls at nearly 100 miles per hour while wearing a Roberto Cavalli dress and, of course, high heels.

Jumping while wearing heels, however, is the least of her worries.

"Well, when you fly it's easy [to wear heels] because you don't have to put your feet anywhere, just in the air," Mancino said. "But it was very hard for me to walk on the platform. So it was really difficult for me to keep my modeling walking skills and don't think about [the fact] that I was about to go off the cliff."

Since 2012, nearly 50 people have died from BASE jumping. Last summer, Mancino even smacked into the side of a cliff but survived. She made it clear that she is not fearless.

"Every time, every single BASE jump is scary," she said. "[In] BASE jumping you only have one parachute so if it doesn't open, you die."

She also swims with whale sharks and other sizable sea creatures, knowing that a woman in a bikini can draw attention to what she cares about: the health of the ocean and the animals that live there.

"If you show pictures with a shark and a woman, that they interact and they connect together, then people start to realize that they're not so dangerous," she said.

"It's kind of funny they always talk about my naked jump," she said.

Skydiving naked for a fashion magazine did not feel as sexy as it sounds.

"Feels cold," she said, laughing. "Can be painful because of the harness, but it's not difficult."

Not difficult for someone who knows how to put on one heck of a fashion show.