58 The Times Magazine“It feels refreshing to walk on set and know
you’re not the only black person in the room,”
says Adwoa, when I ask her about Simone
Rocha’s casting, which historically is diverse
in terms of race, age and body shape. “I think
that’s going to take some time to feel normal.
It’s very much still exciting.”
The sisters have a black father and a white
mother. Their father, Charles Aboah, was
born in Ghana. He is the director of CiMS,
a production app for the creative industries.
Their mother, Camilla Lowther, was born in
England; her uncle was the late seventh Earl
of Lonsdale. Lowther founded a talent agency
in 1984, which she sold in 2014; she was
awarded an OBE for services to British fashion
and photography in the 2020 new year’s
honours list. Adwoa’s godfather is Ghanaian-
born Edward Enninful (also given an OBE, in
2016), who is editor-in-chief of British Vogue.
The sisters grew up aware of the fashion
industry through their mother’s work, but it
certainly wasn’t a given that they’d work in it.
“She was very adamant that we had to finish
school and we both went to university,” says
Adwoa, who has a theatre degree from Brunel
University London; Kesewa has an art degree
from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
“It was always just a way to find freedom,
from a very early age,” says Kesewa of
modelling. “That’s how I afforded to go on
my first holiday and that kind of stuff. It
wasn’t anything to do with my parents. I just
had an opportunity and I never wasted it.
“For the first couple of years of modelling,
I found it really hard to do jobs without my
sister. I would be nervous on set, so it was
always really nice having my sister around
because she can read my mind without me
having to say anything. I’m not scared any
longer, but it’s nice to spend time together.”
By the time Edward Enninful took over
editing British Vogue in 2017, Adwoa was one
of the most in-demand models in the industry.
Enninful put her on his first cover (which was
also the first British Vogue cover for Adwoa).
Alexandra Shulman, the departing editor-in-
chief of 25 years, during whose tenure black
women were shown on the cover 12 times,
said of it, “She’s the perfect mixture of mixed
race – sort of posh Notting Hill royalty. So
she’s the perfect cover star, absolutely.”
Colourism is one of the conversations that
Adwoa wants to have on Gurls Talk, she tells
me. “I touched on it in a particular podcast
with Afua Hirsch [the bestselling author and
broadcaster], both being mixed-race women
and both being from Ghana but having been
brought up in London. Also both coming
from quite privileged backgrounds. It’s not a
conversation that we are having enough, but
I feel like we are moving in that direction.”
Racism in the fashion industry has begun
to be addressed more, especially with Enninfulat the helm of Vogue. Last July, he talked
about being racially profiled as he entered the
Vogue offices, where a security guard told him
to “use the loading bay”.
“It wasn’t the norm to speak about
microaggressions and everything like that,”
says Adwoa Aboah of her early modelling
years. “It’s not just about having a black model
on the cover of your magazine. What about
what’s going on behind the camera and at the
fashion houses and at the magazines? So I felt
more confident to start voicing those things.“In many ways it’s been different. I’m
mixed race, so I have had a different
experience from a black woman. I am black,
but you know the differences. I think the
experience was so different when I was
starting out because I was uncomfortable
being myself and I was uncomfortable with my
ethnicity and what that meant for my position
in the fashion industry. I was uncomfortable
about the hair I had. I didn’t feel like I was
made to feel good about those things.”
In May 2018, Time Magazine put Adwoa
on the cover of their Next Generation Leaders
issue. In 2019, she was on Forbes’ 30 under 30
Europe list. Three years on from her first
British Vogue cover, and a year after appearing
there again for the issue guest-edited by
the Duchess of Sussex, Adwoa appeared on
another: September 2020’s Activist issue,
alongside Marcus Rashford, the Premier
League footballer whose campaigns for free
school meals over the holidays during the
pandemic caused a government U-turn.
“I didn’t want to be seen as the leading
figurehead of Black Lives Matter, because I’m
not that,” says Adwoa. “That’s why it was very
important to me that what they were saying
about me being an activist was because of
what I had been constantly speaking about
within the realms of mental health and what
I do with Gurls Talk. It has always been my
primary focus to make sure that my life
within the fashion industry and my activism,
in many ways, don’t contradict each other.
But I’m adamant that I was an activist way
before I started modelling. I started Gurls Talk
before I got my British Vogue cover, before
I got my Italian Vogue cover. I mention those
because I think those were mega moments
in my career.”
Adwoa has realised over the course of
the pandemic that she’s happiest when she’s
working – which is lucky, as Gurls Talk, her
modelling career and plans for more acting
roles are all priorities. Kesewa is working
towards her own art show – although, more
immediately, she’s dreaming of a break from
London’s weather.
“I am going somewhere hot on a road
trip with friends... I’m going to go away for
two months. I would like to go to Vietnam,
Senegal. I have never been to Madagascar.
All I’m going to do for the rest of lockdown is
make a list of all the places I want to go.”
Hovering silently in the Zoom corner, her
agent looks anxious at the very thought of it. I
imagine she has other plans for Kesewa’s time
once lockdown lifts, modelling jobs on hold
waiting for a green light. Doubtless the sisters
will be busier than ever – although it’s clear
that they prefer it that way, that their shared
work ethic makes sitting still a chore. It’s what
makes the Aboahs a fashion dynasty in the
making; that and good genes, of course. n‘STARTING OUT, I WAS
UNCOMFORTABLE
WITH MY ETHNICITY’
White dress, £119.99, floral dress, £139.99 (both hm.com)With their father, Charles, and mother, Camilla, in 2019Adwoa with the Duchess of Sussex in 2019BEN TOMS, GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK