Getting Ready For The Fashion Awards 2019 With Model Of The Year Adut Akech

Adut Akech has been named Model of the Year at the Fashion Awards 2019. The award feels like a fitting end to a remarkable 12 months for the 19-year-old, who accepted it at the Royal Albert Hall dressed in a velvet and taffeta forest green “dream” dress made in collaboration with Pierpaolo Piccioli for Valentino.

Rewind a few hours, and we’re sitting in Adut’s suite at the Bulgari Hotel, reflecting on the year, as her make-up artist Keita Moore presses on emerald green glitter eyeshadow. “I’m very excited, but a little nervous,” she laughs, unaware that in a matter of hours she’ll be collecting her award from Piccioli and British Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful.

”I thought 2018 was crazy, but 2019 was times that by two,” Adut says. ”So much has happened, and I have done so many… things I would never have [thought of] in a million years. I did not think I would have five Vogue covers in one month – let’s start there.” Other landmark moments include starring in her very first fragrance campaign for Valentino, earning a spot on the esteemed Time 100 Next list, and appearing in myriad editorials that have seen her face sweep billboards and Instagram feeds alike.

The Fashion Awards nomination was the ultimate cherry on top. ”This is every model’s dream,” says Adut, humbly. ”This is what we work for. It would be an absolute honour to win and it would show that hard work does pay off. This would be the ultimate [feeling of] ‘I’ve done it.‘”

Adut’s presence at the top of her industry is part of a significant shift. In her, women of colour – and especially those with darker skin – see themselves represented, the importance of which the Sudanese-Australian model has been forthright about. But despite all of her achievements, Adut is the first to say the job isn’t over yet. “Me doing the things that I have done goes to show that there is change happening, but there’s still a long way to go,“ she tells Miss Vogue. ”It just makes me so happy to see all these models of different skin colours being used for these big brand campaigns, editorials and magazine covers, which wasn’t happening when I started doing it, not that long ago in 2016. It’s a great achievement, but we haven’t reached our end goal yet.”

Credit: Vogue

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