Alek Wek:The Exotic Face Of Africa

from Leadership Nigeria

The started appearing on catwalks in 1995, when she was 18 and the stars have continued to shine for the striking Sudanese born model, Alek Wek, as she has since walked the runway for very high profile fashion designers which include John Galliano, Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Fendi, Ermano Scervino, Jean Paul Gauliter, Ralph Lauren, Haltson, YSL, Michael Kors, Valentino, Gucci and many more. She has also appeared on ads for Issey Miyake, Moschino, Victoria Secret and Clinique and is not peddling down as she is still signing more ad and runway contracts at 30.

Alek Wek was born into a southern Sudanese Dinka tribe family in 1977 and was raised in a close knit family, in the small village of Wau. "In my country", she says, "Families are raised as though they are one. Although I am from the Dinka tribe, my parents didn't raise us as the Dinka tribe. They raised us as the Wek family in the way they believed their children should grow up".

She was named the black and white cow after a tribal good luck symbol and this name is sure bringing her luck as she now has all the fame and success she can garner.

In 1982, a civil war broke out between the Muslim north and Christian south of Sudan, the Wek family fled Wau and moved to Khartoum, the capital. Her father however underwent a hip replacement surgery but unfortunately passed on as a result of complications arising from the surgery.

So, this prompted the Weks' decision to leave Sudan. Alek's elder sister had moved to Britain before the civil war and hence filed for refuge status on behalf of her family. In 1991, Alek Wek and her younger sister moved to Britain, her mother and the remaining siblings joined two years after.

Fortune smiled on Alek while she was studying Fashion technology and business at the prestigious London college of Fashion. She was shopping at an outdoor market when she was discovered by models one scout, Fiona Ellis in 1995.

She signed on to Models one and it wasn't long before the success story began for the African queen as she was immediately selected to appear in the music video for Golden eye by Tina Turner. She also appeared on the pages of cutting edge publications vibe and iD, hence made it into the world of fashion as one of the world's top models.

She moved on to Ford modelling agency in 1996 and her modelling career kept sky rocketing as high profile designers couldn't have enough of the young African model who had this very rare and distinctive look.

She appeared in Janet Jackson's got till its gone video that year, walked numerous runways and appeared in highly placed ads. She went on to clinch a couple of awards, which include Best new model award at the Venus de la Mode fashion award, 1997 MTV model of the year award, and model of the decade by i-D.

Her achievements as one of the world's top model cannot be underestimated as she became one of the most expensive models in the world, earning a mouth watering 2.7 million pounds a year in 2002. Alek took a shot at acting that same year when she appeared in the movie, The Four Feathers as Sudanese Princess Aquol

The intelligent, smart and self driven African ethnic beauty also started designing her range of designer handbags called "Wek 1933", a name she decides to use in memory of her late father who was born in the year 1933.

In 2004, she was named the face of the Cape Town fashion week. She was also face of the This Day style awards held in Lagos, Nigeria in 2006. She is Africa's pride to behold and has been described as a success story for the African continent and one of the very few to have a successful modelling career outside the African shores.



Alek has been compared to Somalia born model that has been described as one of the world's greatest beauty and greatest models, Iman Abdulmajid, which she considers an honour. She has also been described as beautiful and chic by renowned designer, Karl Lager field and this she considers very exciting, "Chic was just a word that never popped into my head. Functional, yes, fashionable, lovely but to hear chic from Karl of all people was beyond exciting".

Alek is filled with great confidence and is not one for any form of self decapitating as she believes that true beauty always comes from inside and has a way of radiating through the person.

"I have no problem with whatever the next big look is, whether it is big blond hair and blue eyes or green hair and dark eyes," she says, "That's fine, so long as there isn't just one ideal image. Just don't try and tell me that only one look is beautiful".

She has also looked beyond her modelling career as she has worked for Aids awareness benefits, breast cancer research and has taken a place as a member of the US committee refugees' advisory council. Her experience as a refugee has helped her work earnestly to fight for the cause of refugees' world wide. She is also raising awareness on the humanitarian disaster in Sudan and other war torn countries and launched an aid program called doctors without borders to fight this cause.

She plans to live in Sudan again that basically will be after the war that has ravaged the country for more than a decade.

"It's a beautiful country with an amazing culture and history. It is so unfortunate that the civil war has robbed my people of their basic rights, their voices, the necessities of life and even life itself.

Shanghai: The allure of individualism

Liang Ping, who traveled from Xian in central China to Shanghai to shop, browsing through a rack at the boutique Estune. (photo Ariana Lindquist for the IHT)

A number of young designers here have opened shops to sell their own creations.

By Alexandra A. Seno

'When I look at China and fashion, the underlying focus is on the rebirth of individualism," Lorraine Justice, head of the school of design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said in an interview. And amid the clutter of Shanghai's retail scene, a number of youthful and energetic designers are making their mark by celebrating that personal kind of style. Why make a black silk vest the way one has been taught at school when it can be cut differently, covered buttons can be added in unexpected places and the whole thing can be embellished with ribbons, beads and feathers?

That is certainly the attitude this season at Estune, a funky boutique on Chang Le Road in the strip close to the Rui Jin Road intersection, where a number of young designers have opened shops. Clothing stores along the street reflect the range of Shanghai style today. There are those that offer factory overrun clothing at prices three times the norm; those that sell poorly made shoes and bags and outfits with iron-on crystal accents. Then there are shops like Estune - a space in which clothes are hung in a loft-like space of unfinished concrete with whitewashed wood doors.

The clothing in shops like Estune is different from that produced by the first generation of contemporary Shanghai designers, like Wang Yiyang of Cha Gang fame, Han Feng, or the great hope of Chinese fashion, Wang Wei, now based in London. That group, whose members are still working in fashion, approached clothing as art. Indeed, Wang Yiyang and Wang Wei got their big breaks working for a fashion label started by the late Chen Yifei, a painter who is considered a Chinese realist master. In contrast, the newcomers, first and foremost, appear to be just having fun.

Alex Ying Jianxia, the creative force behind Estune, trained at the Beijing Fashion Institute, where he saw photographs of work by Yohji Yamamoto and fell in love with the aesthetic. Ying, 32, who has worked in the garment trade since graduation, opened Estune last year with investment from friends and family. He describes the spirit behind his style as the pursuit of "self-expression."

As for the brand name, he said proudly, "I thought of myself. I know there is no word like this in English, but it sounds good, so I thought it would make a nice name." (It is pronounced "s-tune," the ending rhyming with "moon.") Estune, which uses high-quality wool and silks for its women's wear, has attracted the attention of the local hipster crowd, most of whom are trendy young working women. This season, Ying has given traditional pieces a spirit of fun and youth: big wool coats in red-and-black plaid, busily decorated vests. Ying estimates that the bulk of his clientele are Chinese, many of them mainland-based Taiwanese and Hong Kongers; about 30 percent are Americans and Europeans who live in Shanghai.

Shanghai is far enough from Beijing for designers to feel free to experiment and far enough from Hong Kong to keep its influences at arm's length, preserving the strong effect of their cultural roots, said Justice of Hong Kong Poly, who also is the author of the coming book "China by Design." For young designers, "Shanghai is the perfect place - it has the history and contemporary culture and is close to the factories of the Yangtze Delta," she said. "It really is the perfect place for this kind of creative soup."

In general, designers like Ying say they are going through a deconstructionist moment, taking apart the traditional fashion format in favor of something new. "They're not totally Italian with high drama and not Japanese with understatement over strong basic structure," Justice said. "The Chinese deconstructionists are unique. There is a pragmatism and experimentalism and a visual impact. This is why I see Chinese fashion becoming another great icon for the fashion world. There is an energy." At the two Even Penniless boutiques on Chang Le Road, the designer Gao Xin says he is guided by 1980s and 1990s Italian style as he experienced it in Hong Kong films. He said: "I think of those times, of the movies of Andy Lau and Leslie Cheung and what they wore. The clothes had a pureness to them."

As for his own closet, Gao is a self-confessed fan and owner of pieces by Helmut Lang, Martin Margiela and Raf Simons. Gao, a Hangzhou fashion school graduate, has become one of the most exciting local names in young fashion by creating very wearable clothes with just that flair. He does a chocolate trench coat in a perforated wool fabric, fastening it with nylon tape. A midnight blue ankle-length skirt turns into a mini when the bottom half zips off; a green striped version opens upwards, creating a high slit or an apron to wear over jeans. As for the name of his shops, Gao, 31, chuckles: "My friends do joke with me about that; they ask me: 'Why are your clothes so expensive for a Chinese brand?' I called it 'Even Penniless' because I thought style shouldn't be about money."

Gao's apparel, like that of his peers, is made in small quantities, usually a couple of dozen per style, by in-house staff. An Even Penniless trench sells for 2,598 yuan, or $347; a white crepe jacket at Estune is 2,980 yuan. In an essentially conservative society like Shanghai, the question remains: Is there a big enough market for these clothes in China? Over the years, a number of similarly promising labels have opened and then closed shop. "Ah, yes, in China there are not so many who would be comfortable wearing this look," Ying said. "It is hard to wear, but when it works, it looks great."