“Wow, you’re really taking me back! It really has been two and half decades,” says Alek Wek of her zeitgeist-shifting entry into the fashion industry. The British-South-Sudanese model was scouted in 1995 as an 18-year-old art student roaming the stalls of Crystal Palace market in London, and quickly shot to fashion stardom. She was photographed by Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue and Herb Ritts for the Pirelli campaign early on in her career, and went on to grace just about every runway that mattered, including many of Alexander McQueen’s most memorable shows.
As one of a handful of darker skinned Black models in the industry at the time, Wek blazed her own trail, lighting the way of a new generation with her trademark gap-tooth smile, endless legs, and irrepressible sense of joy. In 2004, she made history as the first Black model or “bride” to close the Chanel Haute Couture show. “Usually it’s all go, go, go, but over the last six months I’ve had the chance to reflect on all that and appreciate it,” says Wek, 43, speaking over the phone from her brownstone in Brooklyn.
Here, the supermodel ponders some of the most memorable moments in her impressive career, from working with the likes of Karl Lagfeld, Tina Turner, and Rihanna, to making a documentary on her return to South Sudan, to attending the Met ball in 2018.
On her first modeling gig
[Tina Turner’s] “GoldenEye” video was my first booking as a model. I remember going to the casting with this little polaroid in my book. I must have been about 17 or 18 at the time and had been living in London for a few years. The funny thing is I almost didn’t do it because there was this one scene where I had to swim in a big tank and I could not swim to save my life. But they said, “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
The shoot started really early in the morning. Tina [Turner] came when we were doing wardrobe. She talked to each one of us and said, “I appreciate you guys.” Like who does that? It was the sweetest thing. She must have been just wearing her sweatpants, pajamas, and maybe a jacket. I will never forget that. Years later, I met her and she still remembered me.