Vogue USA - 04.2020

(singke) #1
Adut A kech,
South Sudan, Australia
In a little over three years, Akech has
achieved just about everything you would
expect to find on a model’s bucket list:
campaigns for the likes of Valentino and
Saint Laurent, countless magazine covers
(14 of them for various Vogue editions
around the world), turns on almost every
major runway—she even landed the
coveted finale spot as the bride in Chanel’s
fall 2018 couture show. But more than
being fashion’s most recognizable new face,
the 20-year-old has emerged as one of
the industry’s most important new voices.
“Before I’m anything else, I am a refugee,
and I’m so proud of that,” says the
Brooklyn-based model, who was born in the
war-torn area that is now South Sudan
and raised in Kakuma, Kenya, in one of the
world’s largest refugee camps, before
moving to Australia with her family when she
was eight. “I want to educate people on
what that really means.” Akech did exactly
that last December at The Fashion
Awards in London—where she was named
Model of the Year—with an impassioned
speech that shed light on her extraordinary
story and underscored the importance of
representation in the industry. She’s now
harnessing her influence to effect change in
the wider world: When the bushfires broke
out in Australia and she and four of her
siblings were forced to evacuate their home
in Adelaide, Akech called on the help of the
fashion community to support fundraising
efforts. “I wouldn’t use the words role
model to describe myself,” says Akech.
“I’m just doing and saying what I know best.”
Dries Van Noten jacket and tank top.
Dsquared2 jeans.

n a brisk morning
in early January, the setting is ostensibly a photo studio
in midtown Manhattan—though it could just as well be
an arrivals terminal at JFK. Adut Akech, the gorgeous,
gap-toothed South Sudanese–Australian model, has just
arrived, carry-on in tow, after a 30-hour flight from her
hometown of Adelaide. French model and engineering
student Mariam de Vinzelle is nestled on the sofa, her head
buried in a pile of textbooks as she studies for the classes
she’ll take in Paris later in the week. Above the hum of hair-
dryers, models Jill Kortleve and Imaan Hammam—both
transplants to New York from the Netherlands—can be
heard chatting in Dutch. “Where else can you walk into a
place and find people from all over the world?” observes
Kaia Gerber—one of the only American models in the
room. “If you put a pin on a globe for every model, the
whole thing would just light up.”
While the geographical sweep of runway stars was once
drawn along narrow lines in which nationality, ethnicity,
and race were often reduced to passing trends, there is a
real sense today that fashion is, at long last, embracing an
idea of beauty that encompasses the entire world. Phrases
once used to crassly compartmentalize models—from the
“Brazilian bombshell” to the “all-American beauty”—no
longer fit, and the wave of identically cast Eastern Euro-
pean faces that dominated the runways in the early aughts
has given way to a new generation of diverse international
characters with multilayered identities.
It’s in that spirit of global collaboration that this portfo-
lio was created. The models photographed here represent
23 international editions of Vogue—and a far-reaching
tapestry of nations beyond. At a time when many political
leaders both here and abroad are increasingly looking
inward—seemingly more concerned with building walls
and policing borders than looking outside them—this
group of models suggests a more expansive and inclusive
way of seeing the world.

As the fashion industry continues to address its shortcom-
ings in the wake of #MeToo, and the conversation around
the health and well-being of models continues to open up,
the young women on these pages are raising their voices
and asserting their individuality, their perspective, and their
points of view. Among them you’ll find Ugbad Abdi, the
Somali-born teenager from Iowa who’s challenging stereo-
types about Muslim women, and Adesuwa Aighewi, whose
passion for ethical fashion is informed by her West African,
East Asian, and Southeast Asian heritage.
Perhaps no one epitomizes the moment more than
the formidable Akech, who used her turn at December’s
Fashion Awards in London—where she was named Model
of the Year—as an opportunity to advocate for the rights
of her fellow refugees. Like many of her peers, she sees
modeling as a stepping-stone to being a more conscious
presence in the world. “I have a real passion for modeling
and fashion, but more than that, being in this industry
has allowed me to have a platform to speak on the things
that I really believe in,” she says. “Seeing the impact of
my words and actions on the people around me is really
what matters most.”—chioma nnadi

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