Photographer Viviane Sassen brings two fearless fashion icons together for Dazed - here, they speak out on anti-war activism and multiculturalism in modelling.
There’s an energy field around Grace Bol. Her editorial work balances pure, magnetic power and poised cool, the kind of presence you either have as a model or you don’t. After being discovered at the age of 19 at a mall in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, her first local modelling gigs quickly led to fashion proper. “Coming into fashion, I loved it. I get to travel, I get to meet different people, different cultures. I love adventure, exploring the world, different cities, countries, wildlife,” she says.
Bol is on the phone from her agency in New York, recently back from Paris where she capped off another strong season walking for Marc Jacobs, Gareth Pugh, Balmain, Loewe and Haider Ackermann. Over Christmas, she visited family in her native Sudan. Like fellow South Sudanese model Alek Wek, she fled the country because of civil war, coming to the US with her family at the age of “eight or nine” through a UN camp.
“I was shocked by the snow,” she says, laughing. “We didn’t know how to deal with it, but we learned. We learned (to overcome) the language barrier, too, (especially) the children.”
As a child in a war-torn country, was Bol aware of what was happening around her? “I saw a few things, but our parents did everything to keep us away... They distracted us, and we were very happy as kids even though we were in the worst place. They made us feel like we were in the best (place).” During her last visit to the country, she says that she saw a lot of change.“Politics-wise, it was still unstable. But I think the country is going in a direction where it won’t stay that way. The world could help by coming in to talk to them and try to unify them. I think it’s best to come in without giving them weapons because they are not in a good place for that.”
Bol wants to make the most of the platform fashion offers to speak about her experiences, and has hosted talks on activism paths within modelling. “I could have said anything while I was in school but it wouldn’t have reached anyone,” she says. “Right now, in my position, I can send a good message to people and it will reach them. It’s a good place for me.”
Who are her own role models? “Michelle Obama. She’s strong, she’s smart, she’s always been about unity and... I don’t know, I love everything about her,” she says. It’s too bad, I offer, that the current White House occupier seems beyond reasoning with.
“I know, we just have to be patient. We’ll get there.”
