Pan-African fashion Featuring Adut Akech
South Sudanese model Adut Akech made it out of a refugee camp, achieved a Model of the Year title and has an impressive list of runway credits, magazine covers and fashion campaigns under her belt.
If I were her, I would be so annoyed right now. That’s what I think, watching Adut Akech as preparations for a shoot get underway early one morning inside a sprawling studio space. She sits in the hair and makeup area, wearing a white bathrobe; the manicurist is filing her nails while the hairstylist is busy shaping her Afro into a Grace Jones-inspired fade. The clippers are buzzing, and onlookers are hovering nearby. I’m standing in front of Adut, but I can’t see her face because it’s covered by a sheet mask. But that spectacularly sculpted face is animated, and she’s chatting with me as if this were a perfectly normal way to have an intimate conversation.
Adut has the kind of origin story that’s just begging to be turned into a made-for-Netflix biopic. She was born in South Sudan, but she spent her early years in a refugee camp in Kenya, where she lived until she was eight years old with her mother and her siblings. Although she was young, she remembers a lot about what was going on around her – the hunger, the fear and constantly moving to escape the threat of violence. Despite the difficult circumstances, life in the camp taught Adut the power of gratitude. “When you live in those conditions, you try to make the most of life because you know that tomorrow isn’t promised,” she says. “I always felt I had to be grateful for whatever food I ate that day or that I had somewhere to sleep because I knew that there were kids who didn’t have those things.” She’s 19 now and speaks with an Australian accent – that’s where she and her family ended up after they got out of the camp.
After they left Kenya, one of Adut’s first big dreams came true: to get an education. She spent a year learning English at a special school for refugee children from all over the world. After mastering English, she changed schools multiple times as her family moved around a lot. Not all the lessons she learnt were the stuff of dreams. “I was bullied by the popular girls about my skin tone, my hair and especially my gap [teeth], which I’ve grown to love,” says Adut. “I’m not gonna lie – that made me feel a little insecure. Then, an ‘I don’t care’ mindset
kind of kicked in for me, and I told myself I was beautiful.” She makes it sound simple, but it’s no easy feat, especially at an impressionable age, to figure out how to appreciate your beauty in a society filled with messages that say you fall way outside the standards. She didn’t know it at the time, but the cruel children she encountered at school helped her cultivate exactly what she needed to make it in the modelling world: an unshakable belief in herself.
Adut was signed to an agency at 15, and not long after that, she made her debut at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney in 2016. Her breakout moment came in September 2017, when she was cast in a Saint Laurent show in Paris, ultimately signing a three-season exclusive with the brand. In three short years Adut has already graced the covers of Korean, Australian and British Vogues, she has walked the runways for Prada, Versace and Chanel, and landed fashion campaigns for designers Valentino and Fendi.
And the fashion world seems quite happy to have her in it, as is evident from her jam-packed work schedule and the coveted Model of the Year title (an award bestowed by an elite group of industry insiders polled by models.com) she nabbed in December. The modelling business is more competitive than ever, but there’s something special about Adut that sets her apart. As British Vogue editor in chief Edward Enninful (who put Adut on the May and December 2018 covers) told CNN: “No one looks like Adut. Not only is she extraordinarily beautiful; she also has a sweetness that comes through in her pictures. If Naomi Campbell and Alek Wek had a love child, it would be Adut.”
Family is everything to Adut. She speaks to her mother twice a day. “When I wake up after I’ve only had one hour of sleep and I have to go to a show, I remind myself why I’m doing this, and that’s definitely to help my family. Everything I do is mainly for their future,” she says. That’s a lot of weight on the shoulders of a teenager.
It seemed as though this strategy was working – until New Year’s Day, when she revealed on her Instagram account that she had been hiding depression and anxiety behind her smiles. Her followers never would have suspected that she spent most days in 2018 crying before and after work. “It was so draining mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I don’t know how I’m still here today,” she wrote. Although she says opening up about her mental health was difficult, she has no regrets. “After I [posted] that, so many people messaged me saying that I’d saved their lives.”
Another topic she’s outspoken about: diversity in beauty and fashion. She’s often compared to fellow South Sudanese model Alek Wek, one of the few darkskinned women to rise to supermodel status in the mid ’ 90s. Alek was held up as a symbol of shifting perceptions of black beauty, which she was, but it’s frustrating that two decades later, we’re still talking about the need for broader representation of black beauty, with Adut as Alek’s heir apparent. Not that things haven’t progressed at all. Fenty Beauty’s 2017 launch of 40 foundation shades deserves a lot of credit for making women with the deepest skin tones feel seen and valued. Rihanna’s bold move caused a ripple effect that has made its way to the runway.
So much has changed in her life, but her core remains the same. She knows who she is and what she wants. Adut wants to study business or journalism, she’d love to do more work with the UN to help refugees at her former camp, and one day she wants to build a school, a hospital or a modelling agency in South Sudan. “I don’t want to just be known as Adut Akech, the model. I want to build a legacy,” she says. “I don’t feel like I only represent black girls; I want to represent anyone who started from nothing and had to work their way up. I want to inspire.” That’s one mission she’s already accomplished.
“i always felt i had to be grateful [for what i had] because i knew that there were kids who didn’t have those things”