Yep, that's Alek Wek, the South Sudanese model that started a revolution in the fashion industry at 18 (!!!) and compelled a young Lupita Nyong'o to stop begging God to make her skin lighter. Our paths crossed in Times Square yesterday and, not surprisingly, she was sweet enough to let me take a snapshot. She's a skinny little switch of a thing. Her skin is so flawless, she's luminous. And she was wearing a beautiful, bright, flowery dress that looked so spring-like, it knocked the chill right off of the rest of my day.
Now there's so many South Sudanese models (amongst others!) working in the fashion
industry, it's not a thing to see such blue-black elegance drifting
through any campaign, whether it's commercial or high end. It's important to recognize that Ms. Wek was the one that blew that door off its hinges. She's an ambassador, for all of us.
Hats off to the modeling scout that spotted her in London at a flea market with her mother when she was 18 years old.
What's
interesting is that Ms. Wek never doubted her own beauty -- probably because as a child in the South Sudan, she wasn't
surrounded by an avalanche of white-centric media. Her confidence must have been infectious.
i don't know exactly when it happened. i don't know what triggered it. i don't know when all of it hit me, full on. maybe it was boxing. taking myself to my absolute limit physically every day definitely changed me from the inside out. maybe it was the clean program. so many days of deliberately eating unprocessed, healthy, organic food -- no caffeine, no salt, no sugar, no junk food, no corn, no peanuts, no dairy, no nightshade vegetables, no wheat gluten, no pork or beef or seafood -- for weeks on end. it must have shaken something loose in my soul. or maybe its all the vintage tea dances and parties and cool events and such -- glowy moments that transport me into another time and place, whether i want to go or not.
as if all of that weren't enough, i have an avalanche of unconditional love in my life that overwhelms the most mundane moments in my day to day world -- and he's right by my side.
apparently while i was beating myself up about not being able to do a military push up, my life pulled me up to this whole other level. something clicked when i read the quote above. like gabby, i made the decision to get off the couch and get physical. i made up my mind to eat healthy. i wanted to have more fun on my own terms. sure -- getting dressed up in vintage clothes and going to a tea social and dancing to music from the 20s and 30s isn't everyone's idea of a good time but it makes me very, very happy. so, nuts to you.
it's a beautiful thing, to subconsciously focus only on the things that really matter until everything else grows strangely blurred -- and i'm left wondering why i cared about any of that stuff in the first place.
and that's another thing: there is something powerful and life-affirming to be said for gabourey sidibe having the guts to make that statement to herself, to decide that she is beautiful, when practically everything in the world is telling her -- and every other black woman on the planet -- that she is not. there's a reason why, in a recent allure magazine survey, black women were three times as likely to rate themselves as "hot" than their caucasian counterparts. that makes perfect sense to me.
i don't have anything out there in the world that's validating what i see when i look in the mirror, so i make my own world. i have my own beauty standards and regimens, my own beauty ideals. my own beauty icons. and as i surround myself with these things and more, my self-confidence grows and grows and grows.
did chris rock say it best? why yes, he did.
i know how -- i decided! -- but i don't know when i got to this stronger, healthier, happier, more beautiful place in my life. all i know is that i'm pressing on, the upward way. and i'm grateful.
