When Anok Yai was photographed on “The Yard” at Howard University’s 2017 homecoming celebration, a style star was born. After brokers clamored to find the id of the then-19-year-old magnificence and competed to signal her, Yai turned a world sensation; throughout the first six months of her profession, she turned the primary Sudanese mannequin and solely the second Black mannequin to open a Prada style present, behind Naomi Campbell. In the seven years since, the covers and accolades have continued rolling in, together with her first American Vogue cowl in 2020, main Yai to be dubbed one in all this era’s “New Supers” — as in supermodels — by Models.com, which named her its “Model of the Year – Women” in 2023.
However, whereas Yai has succeeded on runways across the globe, there may be one accolade that has eluded her, and now she says she now not desires it. On Monday, because the British Fashion Council hosted The Fashion Awards 2024, Yai was as soon as once more nominated for the council’s Model of the Year, her second nomination in as a few years. For the second time, Yai was handed over for the consideration, which acknowledges “the worldwide influence of a mannequin who, over the past 12 months, has dominated the trade,” explains the group. “With an affect that transcends the catwalk, the Model of The Year has made an impressive contribution to the trade, garnering quite a few editorial and promoting campaigns all year long.”
After dropping in 2023 to Paloma Elsesser, the primary full-figured mannequin to win the award, this yr, the consideration once more handed Yai in favor of Alex Consani, the primary transgender winner within the award’s historical past. While heartily congratulating her good friend and trade colleague on the groundbreaking achievement, which was partially determined by public votes, Yai didn’t trouble hiding her disappointment.
“Alex, I really like you and I’m so pleased with you,” she wrote on X early Tuesday morning, including, “British Fashion Council, thanks however I don’t need it anymore.”
As some accused Yai of getting bitter grapes over her subsequent losses, others, like Teen Vogue affiliate editor Aiyana Ishmael, argue that the mannequin’s disappointment and self-advocacy ought to merely be thought-about reflections of her humanity.
“When we ask ourselves why we would like Yai to take her loss quietly, we’ve to concurrently ask if it’s a response to society’s expectations of Black girls,” Ishmael wrote, quoting creator and government coach Janice Sutherland’s commentary on stereotypes that heart on Black girls’s “perceived energy and resilience. “While these qualities are undoubtedly empowering, they shouldn’t be wielded as causes to disclaim Black girls the area to specific vulnerability, pursue evolving aspirations, or search the assist we’d like with out judgment,” Sutherland notes.
It’s additionally value noting that, lately, Yai has turn into extra vocal in addressing her discomfort with an trade that has incessantly exoticized Black girls and siphoned from Black tradition whereas concurrently trafficking in career-crushing racism, discrimination and colorism. As beforehand reported by theGrio, in May 2024, the now 26-year-old Yai recounted a disturbing and racially charged expertise from early in her modeling profession.
“I bear in mind in 2019 being referred to as a cockroach by a photographer,” she claimed in a now-deleted thread on X. Feeling unable to react as others on set handled the insult as a joke, Yai recalled feeling as if “I can’t react the way in which I need to react as a result of on the finish of the day, I’m younger, I’m alone, I’m Black…something that I do will have an effect on me, my household and different Black fashions.”
With that context in thoughts, Yai’s disappointment at not being acknowledged for her achievements would possibly merely be taken at face worth, reasonably than interpreted as an try and undercut the achievements of Model of the Year winner Consani. Yai mentioned as a lot in a second submit, writing: “If you have got seen the trouble that I’ve seen Alex put in; you’d perceive how proud I’m of her. But Alex will be proud and I will be exhausted on the identical time. It doesn’t take away how a lot love we’ve for one another.”
As a member of a marginalized neighborhood herself, Consani little question empathizes. In truth, she used her acceptance speech on Monday evening to acknowledge “the Black trans girls who actually fought for the area I’m in immediately” and thank “Dominique Jackson, Connie Fleming, Aaron Rose Phillips and numerous extra” for making her personal rise within the trade doable.
“Now, greater than ever, it’s an essential dialog that needs to be had about really assist and uplift each other inside this trade, particularly those that have been made to really feel insignificant,” Consani continued. “Because change is greater than doable — it’s wanted.”
Slowly however certainly, there may be change afoot, as evidenced by the robust Black illustration amongst this yr’s Fashion Award honorees. Winning designers included Grace Wales Bonner (British Menswear Designer) and Priya Ahluwalia (New Establishment Menswear), whereas particular awards got to A$AP Rocky (BFC Cultural Innovator) and Issa Rae (The Pandora Leader of Change). Photographer Tyler Mitchell was additionally acknowledged, successful the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator.
As for Yai, she could now not search validation from the British Fashion Council, however she doesn’t must look additional than The Yard to search out it. The supermodel returned to the location the place she was found for Howard’s 2024 Homecoming celebration, “Yardfest,” a lot to the delight of present college students.
“I’m a Black trans lady, and there’s not a whole lot of illustration,” McKenzie Cooper-Moore, a junior advertising main and rising mannequin, advised Howard’s newspaper, The Hilltop. “She’s one of many high fashions proper now, being a Black lady and being unapologetically Black. That’s actually cool. I actually do look as much as her.”
