Closing the Saint Laurent show at Paris Fashion Week last Tuesday, with the Eiffel Tower as the runway’s backdrop, 17-year-old Adut Akech made waves as one of the world’s most in-demand models.
Born in war-torn South Sudan, Adut spent her early years in a Kenyan refugee camp before arriving in Australia at just seven years old. She now calls Adelaide’s northern suburbs her home, where she is signed by Finesse Models Australia.
All gap-toothed smiles and long legs, it’s no surprise that Adut was scouted every year from her 13th birthday, before finally relenting to the allure of the industry last year. While visiting relatives in Melbourne, she walked into Chadwick Models, who snapped her up on the spot and have since been the team behind Adut’s swift international rise to success.
The month following her signing, Adut appeared in a massive sixteen of Sydney’s Fashion Week parades; including Akira, Bec & Bridge, Romance Was Born and Toni Maticevski. Chadwick’s Joseph Tenni spoke in awe of the superstar newcomer,
“Adut was booked for more shows than any other girl, which was outrageous considering it was her first season.”
Adut is now placed with global network Elite Model Management, and with plans to move to New York later this year she’s sure to be inundated with more high-end bookings.
Although only seventeen, Adut is something of a Saint Laurent veteran. She made her international catwalk debut last September and has walked exclusively for the fashion house for the last three seasons. Having finished high school earlier this month, the model-of-the-moment is currently taking on Paris Fashion Week’s full schedule, and then jetting back to Australia for the Adelaide Fashion Festival, which runs from October 19th to the 23rd.
Praised as Anthony Vaccarello’s ultimate springtime muse, Adut’s fierce introduction to the industry led to her being photographed for Numéro, The Gentlewoman, 10 magazine, Vogue Australia and i-D’s Creativity Issue with Haley Weir. She also made an appearance in the Tim Walker-shot Pirelli calendar, which featured an exclusively black cast. Naomi Campell, Diddy and Whoopi Goldberg also starred in the calendar.
Most recently, Adut was tapped by local super-retailer David Jones to front their spring/summer campaign. As the face of the retailer’s beauty look, the model’s smiling face featured on billboards across Australia’s biggest cities. Sadly, her presence didn’t come without racial controversy, as a complaint was made on the company’s Facebook page from Gold Coast resident, Elizabeth Ballard.
Ms. Ballard wrote:
‘How on earth am I expected to relate to this cover? I can’t wear any of her make-up, I don’t know ANYONE who looks like her … she could have been used on the back page … You people have really missed the mark here, and I’m pissed off and sick of big companys [sic] going for the minority feel good. Please think about your shoppers next time.’
David Jones came under fire for their ‘weak’ response in which they apologized to Ms. Ballard, something that Adut herself felt angered by.
Speaking to The Guardian, Adut explained:
‘My thing wasn’t so much about the lady’s comment because everyone is entitled to their opinion – she’s not happy about it, it is what it is, it’s her opinion, there’s nothing she can do about it. It was more about the David Jones response.’
It’s a stark reminder of the lack of diversity in the industry, an issue it so frequently comes under fire for. More pertinently, it shows what a long way Australia’s fashion industry, in particular, has to come. Australian model Ducki Thot, also a rising star on the international stage, recently spoke out about the lack of diversity in the Australian fashion industry. Speaking to US Paper Magazine, Thot revealed she felt forced to move overseas because of the Australian industry’s lack of racial and ethnic inclusivity.
‘I didn’t understand why, but I wasn’t getting any work,’ Thot told Paper magazine’s Michael Cuby. Going on to say:
‘I think it was a very confusing part of my life for me. I was just this little [black] girl in Australia just being like, ‘Oh yeah, I want to do modelling’, but [while also] being in a country that doesn’t promote black models. It was kind of like a mindf— all in itself anyways, so I didn’t really get how far I was going to go with it.’
Let’s hope to see more of Australia’s representative faces on the international stage.
