Juba, South Sudan – Rising up, Khloe Nyanda and the ladies and women round her have been taught “to be small and never take up areas”, the 21-year-old says.
However the mannequin and regulation pupil on the College of Juba adopted her personal instincts, and function fashions who confirmed her {that a} totally different manner was attainable.
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“Adut Akech took her identification as a refugee and turned it right into a crown,” Nyanda says, referring to the internationally identified South Sudanese mannequin who spent her earliest days in a refugee camp earlier than transferring overseas along with her household.
The rise of South Sudanese icons like her is the tangible proof Nyanda hoped to make use of to persuade her household {that a} profession within the trade was attainable for his or her daughter.
“Ninety-five p.c of the fashions you see from South Sudan will inform you an identical factor: Adut Akech is the spark,” she emphasised.
Nyanda sits with practised poise at The Baobab Home in Juba, a cultural hub that has turn out to be a haven for a lot of artists and creatives within the capital metropolis. She speaks with quiet confidence concerning the milestones in her profession and the often unstated realities that shadowed them.
Nyanda’s life has been outlined by motion. She was born in Yirol, about 200-250 kilometres (roughly 125-155 miles) northwest of Juba, spent her childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, and later returned to Juba.
In 2016, at age 14, she determined modelling was one thing she needed to pursue, however for years her household seen the overlap between her educational life and her dream with unease.
Impressed by the worldwide success of fashions like Akech, Nyanda started modelling in 2023. However her household remained unconvinced concerning the career as a profession choice.
The disapproval from inside this patriarchal system hardened into estrangement. Ultimately, Nyanda misplaced her assist community, together with her stepbrother, who had raised her since she was seven years outdated. This was exacerbated by her rejection of a person that they had chosen for her to marry.
“They don’t assist me,” Nyanda laments.
Limitations
Regardless of rising expertise, South Sudan’s weak inner infrastructure acts as a cage, limiting how far ambition can journey.
For aspiring fashions, the absence of credible, protecting “mom companies” means younger ladies are particularly susceptible to predatory brokers and abusive trainers, fashions say.
Nyanda says she skilled this complexity firsthand when she rejected the advances of a modelling coach. After she refused thus far him, she says it ignited private tensions that ended up costing her paid modelling alternatives and left her with damaged goals.
On paper, Nyanda is an expert whose work calls for mobility and a hybrid identification – transferring between cultures, nations and high-fashion capitals. However in actuality, her South Sudanese passport has turn out to be one other barrier.
Since 2023, she has confronted a number of visa rejections, regardless of being signed by companies in London, Paris and Italy.
The primary try and attend Milan Vogue Week 2023 was rejected by the Italian embassy in Nairobi on account of financial institution assertion points linked to her small company. A second try, by way of I Am Mannequin Administration for Paris, failed twice on the French embassy in Kampala, Uganda.
Neither France nor Italy have embassies in South Sudan, so hopefuls should get journey papers from neighbouring nations, including extra obstacles and bills.
“It’s a wall I’m attempting to interrupt with my naked arms,” Nyanda says.
Assist
Like Nyanda, 20-year-old Alek Mayen Garang can be striving to steadiness her modelling ambitions along with her research as a senior highschool pupil.
Garang was born in Larger Jonglei in jap South Sudan, some 200km north of Juba, and raised in Renk, within the northernmost county bordering Sudan.
When she was younger, her household relocated to Kampala, Uganda. However the 2016 battle pushed them again to South Sudan, including one other layer of upheaval to her youth.
Garang is impressed to mannequin by the worldwide icon, Anok Yai, an American of South Sudanese ancestry who was named mannequin of the yr on the 2025 British Vogue Awards.
Like Nyanda, Garang additionally confronted sturdy resistance at dwelling when, as a 10-year-old, she first developed an curiosity in in the future becoming a member of the trade. Her household apprehensive about how she may juggle training with the calls for of the runway.
But, not like Nyanda, she discovered an important ally inside her family: Her elder sister attended her first runway present when she was 18 and helped negotiate a measure of belief between Garang and their dad and mom.
“I keep in mind telling my dad concerning the present. He was not sure concerning the trade, asking my sister, ‘What is that this modelling? I don’t know a lot about it,’” she recalled.
“It was my first late-night occasion, and it solely occurred after he agreed to let my sister accompany me.”
For Garang, her early hurdles have been technical quite than diplomatic: studying to stroll in excessive heels, sustaining her determine by way of strict weight-reduction plan, and sustaining meticulous skincare.
Like many younger fashions, rejection stays her biggest concern, the spectre that haunts auditions and castings.
Nonetheless, she clings to a easy, unwavering dedication to “by no means hand over”.
Dominating the catwalk
South Sudan’s impression on international trend is already seen.
9 of the world’s high 50 fashions ranked by fashions.com are initially from the nation, a outstanding statistic that speaks to each the depth of its expertise and the starvation of its youth to be seen.
Many former fashions have transitioned into design, together with Akur Majok, who transitioned from modelling to pursue her ardour for trend design; Dawson Dau Amou, the founding father of South Sudan Vogue Week; and David Shegold, who specialises in creating customized wedding ceremony robes.
Some trade veterans have turn out to be coaches and now actively scout new expertise, noting the rising visibility of Black fashions on worldwide runways.
These veterans typically urge younger fashions to prioritise training whereas pursuing their careers, insisting that educational grounding {and professional} aspirations can and should coexist.
However on the similar time, a brand new anxiousness is rising: the concern that, as know-how advances, AI-generated Black fashions may finally displace human ones. For some within the trade, this risk provides yet one more layer of precarity to already fragile careers.
Inside South Sudan, there’s additionally rising concern concerning the restricted engagement of the Ministry of Tradition, Museums and Nationwide Heritage in supporting and branding the modelling trade.
Many within the area consider the ministry may play an important function in speaking to communities and fogeys that modelling is usually a respectable, respectable career.
With out that advocacy, households stay hesitant to permit their daughters and sons to enter the trade. Some dad and mom fear that modelling will result in neglect of cultural norms or trigger their kids to lose their sense of connection to dwelling.
Al Jazeera reached out to the Ministry of Tradition for remark, however they didn’t reply in time for publication.
Dedication to South Sudan
In opposition to this backdrop, Nyanda and Garang are navigating greater than catwalk choreography and digital camera angles. They’re negotiating with custom, forms and know-how, all whereas insisting on their proper to take up area.
Their longing to stride down the runways of worldwide trend weeks collides with the onerous realities of social conservatism, fragile infrastructure and the politics of worldwide mobility.
They confront techniques that always hinder ladies’s ambitions by way of social alienation, exploitative practices and repeated visa denials at consular home windows all over the world.
However each stay decided to chase their dream in a rustic nonetheless within the means of turning into itself – motivated by the chance that, in doing so, they could assist redraw the boundaries of what’s possible for the subsequent era.
In March, Garang gained a modelling award within the “creativity” class on the nationwide Miss Junub magnificence pageant. Since then, her aspirations widened from private success to a broader dedication to shaping the way forward for South Sudan’s trend trade – together with supporting and mentoring rising skills.
Nyanda’s ambition has all the time been pushed by greater than private visibility or vainness.
She carries a radical philanthropic blueprint: dreaming not solely of strolling for Dior and Louis Vuitton, however of utilizing her success to construct establishments at dwelling.
Past her personal modelling aspirations, she can be decided to speculate her future financial savings into making a protected, credible mom company in South Sudan, alongside a faculty and hospital for orphans, to assist reinvest in her nation.
“South Sudan will not be a spot I’m operating from,” she says. “It’s the place I’m operating for.”
