However, it is Waris’ dedication to feminist activism and speaking up against FGM that has made her an icon across the world.
This put Waris on the map, and by the 1990s, she was modelling for huge brands including Chanel, Levi’s and L’Oréal. Overcoming the racism of modelling agencies who claimed there was “no call for black models ”, she was eventually photographed by celebrated British photographer, Terence Donovan. At the age of 18, she was ‘discovered’ by a photographer who put her in contact with UK modelling agencies. When his position ended, Waris chose to stay on illegally in the UK, taking English classes alongside restaurant and childcare jobs. Finding fame in the UK during the 1990s, Waris has used her position to speak out against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and talk about her own childhood experiences.Īfter leaving home and finding shelter in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, Waris was sent to the UK to work as an unpaid maid in the Somalian embassy, for an uncle who was the Somali ambassador to the UK at the time. Born into a nomadic (travelling) family living near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia in 1965, Waris ran away from home aged 13 to avoid an arranged marriage. Waris Dirie is a Somalian supermodel who rose to international fame in the early 1990s.
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