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net-a-porterA nomadic childhood and an international modeling career has given ELISA SEDNAOUI DELLAL an open, intelligent view of the world. She talks to HERMIONE EYRE about family, democracy and philanthropic endeavors.
“I have amazing memories of my first carnival in Rio,” enthuses Elisa Sednaoui Dellal, her gesticulating hands moving ever faster. “My costume was a pineapple! It was so ugly. I went with Christian [Louboutin, a family friend] and we took part: first we marched, then we joined the samba and sang. We are not so strong in Portuguese, so we sang “Cat, dog, cat, dog,” in case the carnival jury was watching. I had only just got together with Alexander [Dellal, now her husband], so I wasn’t altogether happy for him to be seeing me as a singing, dancing pineapple...”
The emerald of Sednaoui Dellal’s engagement ring, almost the size of a penny, flashes with every hand wave. A modern multi-hyphenate, she is a model, mother, muse and more: the former face of Armani and Roberto Cavalli, she is also a European film actress of some note, having starred opposite Vincent Gallo in 2012’s The Legend of Kaspar Hauser. She is a filmmaker, currently editing her own documentary – working title Tomorrow, God Willing – about love and marriage in Luxor, Egypt; and she is mother to Jack, one. In May this year she married his father, Alexander Dellal, the British-Brazilian gallery owner, joining the fashionable Dellal clan, which includes shoe designer Charlotte and fellow model Alice.
“They’re forces of nature, the whole family – full of energy and temperament and jokes,” says Sednaoui Dellal. I imagine she fits in perfectly. Driven and voluble (in English, Italian, French, Spanish and Arabic), she talks at speed in a captivating half-Arabic, half-European accent, her authority making her seem much older than her 26 years. Her father is half-Egyptian, half-French; her Italian mother was a model who became a fashion editor. “A long while back, my family were textile merchants. The ‘-oui’ means ‘from’, so we’re [originally] from Saidnaya, a monastery in Syria near Damascus,” she explains. Owners of the eponymous department store, the Sednaouis were prominent in Egypt until Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in 1952, nationalizing industry and sending the family into exile. Her father trained as an architect in London, but was drawn inexorably back to Egypt, specifically Luxor, where he builds elegant, traditional homes – including one for Christian Louboutin, which is how the shoe designer came to be Sednaoui Dellal’s “spiritual godfather”.
Sednaoui Dellal has a glamorous ‘gypset’ quality that identifies her as an utterly free spirit; equally at home interviewing the head of the Muslim Brotherhood (a scene in her documentary) as she is visiting the Louvre with Karl Lagerfeld. The hallmark of any gypsetter, she often wears kaftans – her favorites “are designed by Moja Majka, a mother-and-daughter team”. She feels as instinctively about fashion as she does about love: “I met my husband at a dinner a friend organized. I don’t know if we were set up, but we’ve never left each other since.”
In London, she and Dellal live in Hampstead (“A little bit like the countryside. You can hear owls at night”), a far cry from her childhood home in Egypt. “I was in Egypt for the first six years of my life; [I went to] an Irish nursery in Cairo until my parents separated,” she says. “My mother and I went to live in Milan, then from the age of eight to 18, I lived in Piedmont in a quiet town perched like a castle on top of a hill. Good food, good wine, grounded and simple. My husband couldn’t believe how quiet it was when he came to visit. He calls me a hill girl. I love that life, I need nature around me.”
This hill girl has been crafting a top-flight modeling career since the age of 14, though always in a carefully measured way. “I’ve always been very selective about the modeling and acting work I’ve done,” she says. Her favorite experiences have been with Peter Lindbergh, Magnus Unnar and Karl Lagerfeld, who shot her for the 2011 Pirelli calendar: “Karl’s taken some of the best pictures of me. He always shoots me exactly as I arrive, with barely any makeup or hair [styling].”
The model’s own aesthetic is a glorious melting pot. “I like to alternate between masculine and feminine: one day I’m wearing a long flowing gown and the next a tuxedo suit with brogues and a shirt. Or I like to wear my classic emerald studs with jeans. I love the game, the contrast,” she says. Her go-to pieces? “I wear my Saint Laurent biker jacket on top of everything, always. Classic Chanel ballerinas are my weakness and biker boots – my favorites are by Haider Ackermann.”
Growing up, Sednaoui Dellal “never dreamed” she would become a model or actress. “I was a bit of a geek at school,” she says, smiling. “I thought I was going to have a diplomatic career.” She may not be in government yet, but she has set up The Elisa Sednaoui Foundation, which aims to create after-school spaces for children to engage in creative play, starting in Luxor and looking to expand globally. “[Somewhere for] boys and girls to dream, sing, perform, express themselves,” explains Sednaoui Dellal. “These are children who have never been guided in [creative activities]. In schools in Egypt, it’s one teacher for every 30 children. In the big schools, it’s one teacher to 100.”
Aside from education, Sednaoui Dellal takes a long view on Egypt’s political instability: “It’s going to take a long time and a lot of things need to change – women’s rights, for example – before Egypt is a democracy. And even then, it has to be Egypt’s own democracy, not a vision imposed by the West…”
She’s strong, this one: a Bianca Jagger in the making. We talk for far longer than required, about history, clothes, politics, the lack of tourists in Egypt (“Luxor is suffering. You can see the great temples practically on your own, like an 18th-century traveler”) and the pitfalls of “charity”. “I hate this English word!” she exclaims. “The idea of my foundation is that it’s not only for the disadvantaged, it’s for everyone. All children need to play.” Intelligence, influence and courage of conviction – there’s a lot to like about Elisa Sednaoui Dellal.
Find out more at elisasednaoui.org