

It took time to work on that.”īorn in South Sudan, she’s a former child refugee who spent the first eight years of her life in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp before migrating to Australia. Her reaction to being scouted was typically coy as she said in an interview “It took me so long to accept that I am a model. She believes what make her and other former refugee turned models, special is their unique dark skin, height and short hair. Today she has been on the pages of Vogue Germany, Vogue Poland, Vogue Australia , Harper’s Bazaar , L’Officiel , V Magazine , WWD , The Wall Street Journal and many others. This very tall South Sudan-born model is a familiar face from the Victoria’s Secret runway and has been on designer runways like Balmain, Burberry, Kenzo, Givenchy, Lanvin, Ralph Lauren or Roberto Cavalli. No stranger to the ongoing discussion surrounding the lack of diversity in fashion and beauty, Thot has spoken out about the topic several times.

One of L’Oréal Paris’ reasons for signing Thot as a global ambassador is the message of inclusivity that she so fiercely champions.

In a 2016 interview, Duckie revealed that she takes her own make up to shoots every time, calling out the beauty industry for being woefully unprepared when it came to doing hair and makeup for models of color. Besides strutting on major runways around the world, and bagging a L’Oréal Paris contract, Duckie Thot is a key member of the Fenty Beauty squad. Raised in Melbourne, Australia with her family as South Sudanese refugees, this dark beauty is breaking barriers. She has been the face of Annabelle Cosmetics, she’s featured at the forefront of their EDGE campaign, a makeup line inspired by strong women who dare to boldly embrace their differences. Nyakim had a long journey going to the US from South Sudan, immigrating by her bare feet from a refugee camp in Ethiopia to a refugee camp in Kenya, and finally to the US.
#DARK BLACK MODELS SKIN#
Nyakim has embraced her darkly pigmented skin and challenges representation in modeling through every photo she takes either on Instagram or cover shoots. Today, nicknamed the “Queen of the Dark” by her fans, the South Sudanese American model has become an icon of beauty and an inspiration to young women everywhere. When Nyakim Gatwetch was growing up, she was often bullied for her dark skin so much that she would cry herself to sleep thinking she wasn’t beautiful enough. Here are the 8 former refugees making it big on the runway These girls are stomping down runways, appearing in major campaigns and going viral for just being as fierce as they want to be.

These girls have beat the odds to succeed and become worldwide inspiration to young girls, proving that Diversity is beauty. They are talking the industry by storm and making history. They all have one thing in common- they are former refugees/ grew up in a refugee camps or come from a family that was once refugees. Infact there’s a new crop of them making it big and breaking barriers around the world and earning big dollar money. Infact the only dark skinned black female model we ever saw on the runway was probably only Alek Wek, But today, all thanks to spirited campaigns by various quarters in the industry, there is more diversity on the catwalk, and we are seeing a new rise in dark skinned female black models. Abi contributes content on the plus-size fashion space for the longest time, the runway has been dominated by white female models and very few dark skinned black models.
#DARK BLACK MODELS SERIES#
Abisola is CEO of the group and also holds the positions of Creative Director at arva, Brand Director at Cube Collective, a 360 digital atelier that specialises in social media strategy and brand communication, and is Beauty Editor at Large of CUBICLE, a printed book series and digital storytelling platform. All four companies sit under The Apārtment Global Group (TĀGG) umbrella. In 2017, the development of three further companies, arva, studio arva, and fole studio began. She then went on to launch The Apārtment in 2012, which has since developed into a digital and creative agency that today, now specialises in event production/design as well as digital and brand strategy. Starting her career back in 2008 by creating a fashion and lifestyle blog, Abisola shortly after went on to contribute to titles that included MSN & Grazia, whilst studying at University of The Arts London. Abisola Omole, or Abimarvel as the majority of her community refer to her as, is a London-based creative and CEO.
