50
Drum: IN FOCUS
“The first time I came to New York I was bawling,
and she was like ‘I thought you wanted to go…?’ It’s
like you act so tough but, as soon as you’re put alone,
you’re a wimp!”
After a draining and occasionally dispiriting month
attending casting after casting in New York, Alek was
ready to come home. Time and again she was told
that she was not ‘commercial’ enough although, as
she asks now, “what’s ‘commercial’?” Others were
more forthright, and bluntly informed her that she was
simply ‘too black’, and would never get make-up work.
like backhanded compliments, especially within an
industry that can employ the term ‘freak chic’ in an
entirely un-ironic context?
“For me, no. It’s like, if you haven’t seen it before,
now you’re seeing it! Dinka girls have been around
forever, but you haven’t seen it in a magazine? Get
used to it! I don’t think I’m a freak - who is someone
to judge you, and say that when you wake up and
look in the mirror, this is who you are, this is what
you look like.”
“After a draining and occasionally dispiriting month attending
casting after casting in New York, Alek was ready to come home.
Time and again she was told that she was not ‘commercial’
enough although, as she asks now, “what’s ‘commercial’?”
Her unique look could have ended her career before
it had even begun. But, for all those who doubted
her ability to flog face powder and foundation, a few
saw an incredible potential. Helpfully, the likes of Karl
Lagerfeld and world-renowned photographer Steven
Meisel were amongst their number, and it wasn’t
long before she found herself being booked for editorial
shoots by ‘edgy’ magazines such as Vibe and The
Face, befo re graduating to more mainstream
publications such as Elle, and clinching prestigious
ad campaigns for Clinique, Revlon, Joop, Moschino
and others.
Alek is philosophical now: “Like my Mom said, ‘nothing
really comes easy’. So if I was coming into it and
everyone was just like ‘oh you’re just amazing, you’re
gorgeous’ – getting all the covers in the world, getting
all the campaigns in the world, nothing is said but
good – I think there would be something wrong.”
Alek became a muse, her defiantly ‘un-commercial’
appearance her greatest selling point, her pure African
features carving her an idiosyncratic niche in the
modelling world. She has been described as ‘exotic’,
‘distinctive’, ‘unconventional’ – do these ever seem
Again, she draws wisdom from her mother’s words:
“My mother always said ‘it doesn’t matter where you
are from, but there’s something - you see beauty in
the eye of the woman’.”
The very fact that Alek has brought an African image
of beauty to the mainstream, and has done so with
dignity and intelligence means that it doesn’t matter
what ‘the industry’ wants to mould her into – she’s
too far ahead of the game to get played now. So far
ahead in fact, that her future successes are no longer
dependent on what some tiny cabal of fashionistas
decide the ‘next big look’ is. Currently taking time
out from modelling, she is now concentrating her
energies on her line of bags, under the company
name Wek 1933 (named as a tribute to her father –
1933 was the year of his birth).
Alek seems aware of potential accusations of ‘cashing
in’ on her name, especially at a time where not a week
goes by without a celebrity of some feather grimly
pouting for the cameras at the high-profile launch of
their new clothing range / perfume / novelty-branded
plastic explosive. A brief look at the company website
alekwek1933.com suggests that this is something a