This week’s Of Note post will be brief due to my travels for Charleston Fashion Week.
Liya Kebede was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1978. Like most famous models, she was spotted out of the blue at the French Lycee by a film director who introduced her to a French modeling agent. From there she began a journey towards a prosperous modeling career by becoming the first woman of color to model for Estee Lauder Cosmetics and landing on the American Vogue cover multiple times.
This month you can catch Liya Kebede in the movie Desert Flower. Desert Flower is the emotional autobiography book turned movie of Somali model Waris Dirie and her struggle to fight the striking culture female genital mutilation in Africa. When the movie opened at the Venice Film Festival, it got a standing ovation. The movie also stars Anthony Mackie, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, and Juliet Stevenson. Desert Flower is out now.
Photo from here.
