Apartheid Chic Hits Runways This Spring
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Luanda, Angola Updated from Aug, 2007 - There is no doubt about it. African models have been hot the last six seasons on the runway. From Alek, to Ajuma, and the re-emergence of Iman, the African woman’s stamp is being firmly planted on the fashion scene. The latest newcomer to the mix is 17 year old Njinga Munis.
Njinga hails from Soyo, a small town in the northwestern part of Angola. Fluent in Portuguese, she is a novelty in the fashion industry, where most models of African descent are scouted after being groomed in the UK or New York.
In the last decade or more, we have seen various “chic” themes purveyed in the fashion industry. Heroin Chic and Shabby Chic are two of the most noted. Just as Kate Moss became the poster-child for cracked out high fashion out models, Njinga will be the face of a new theme, apartheid chic.
Apartheid is a social and political policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by white minority governments in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. It consisted of numerous laws that allowed the ruling white minority in South Africa to segregate, exploit and terrorize the vast majority: Africans, mostly, but also Asians and Coloreds - people of mixed race. In white-ruled South Africa, black people were denied basic human rights and political rights. Their labor was exploited, their lives segregated. Although apartheid was geographically confined to South Africa, its effects rippled across the entire sub-region. Nestled on a leopard skin chaise lounge, the confident young model describes her rise to new stardom, and the concept behind apartheid chic.
“Everyone in my town is an orphan of some sort,” Njinga explains. “Either they were orphaned by AIDS, or their parents went to look for work in the big, big cities like Port Elizabeth or Jo’burg. Most just never returned…for one reason or another.”
As she sips on a traditional Angolan drink, made of sugar cane rum, she points out some of the other children walking through the streets outside of the kiosk where we’ve met. Most, like her, are orphans. The average child weighs about 40 lbs. Njinga herself at 5’11’‘ weighs a mere 98 lbs, a result of poor diet and alcoholism at a young age. With no parents to raise or care for them, most of the youth in her community turn to liquid spirits to get through the day, and scratch a meal when and where they can.
“A man from a geographic magazine took pictures of us last year. I am taller than the average Angolan woman, so of course I stood out. He sent my picture to a modeling agency in London, and suddenly I was being called to model all across Africa!” She shook her drink with delight. “Soon, they say I will have a visa to go to the UK, and I can further my career into supermodel-dom.”
We asked if she thought her image as an AIDS orphaned alcoholic would further exacerbate the West’s conception that all Africans are hopeless louts. Njinga’s slurred cackle was infectious.
“Are you kidding me?” She points to a 12 month old baby girl on the other side of the street, covered with flies and so malnourished she could barely lift her head. “That is what is beautiful to the rest of the world. That half dead baby is the next sensation on the runways. I guarantee you in 5, maybe 8 years, you will see UNICEF chic hit the runways!”
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