Kiara’s Walk From Mbarara To World Catwalks
She is a fixture on the international fashion and modelling scene. Her name is pronounced right up there with the Naomi Campbells, Claudia Schiffers and Tyra Banks of this world. She has dined with White House staff and members of the US Congress, where she played hostess.<br>
She is a fixture on the international fashion and modelling scene. Her name is pronounced right up there with the Naomi Campbells, Claudia Schiffers and Tyra Banks of this world. She has dined with White House staff and members of the US Congress, where she played hostess.
She is routinely referred to as a supermodel by the Western media, but does anybody in Uganda, her country of birth, know her name?
Kiara Kabukuru, born in 1976 in the western town of Mbarara, has scaled heights no Ugandan has dreamt about. She does her job quietly, with no fuss, although she does not hide the act that she was born in Uganda. So why do few people in this country know about her?
“Many of the models have become famous because of their style of living, and maybe because the gossip columns are all over them, but Kiara lives quietly and does not cause too much fuss,†Sylvia Owori, owner of the Ziper Modeling Agency said. “And in any case these days Kiara does not do much catwalk modeling, she concentrates on photo shoots. There she has been all over the place.â€
In 1997, Kiara appeared on the cover of American Vogue magazine, one of the most coveted spots in the fashion world. She became the first African girl to do so, and it so happened that in that very same issue, one of the fashion icons of the world was explaining why it was very difficult for black girls to make it big in the international world of fashion and modeling.
As it so happened, Naomi Campbell had just been bumped off the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in favour of white model Kate Moss. So American Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour, explained in the editor’s note why that could have happened.
“The colour of a cover model’s skin (or hair for that matter) dramatically affects newsstand sales,†she wrote. “Although it is rare for an issue of Vogue to go to the printer without one or more black models featured prominently inside, they appear less often than I, and many of you, would like on Vogue’s covers.â€
That did not stop Kiara from doing what the editor thought was very difficult. She did not stop there, next she appeared on the cover of the Dutch edition of Vogue.
Just who is Kiara Kabukuru? In 1997, when Face of Africa, M-Net’s modeling initiative was launched, Kiara was chosen to be its Patron, to be an example to young girls all across Africa.
In an interview with The New Vision via Satellite link, she talked about what it took to go from Mbarara to the catwalks of international fashion.
“I’d rather not talk about the circumstances under which my family left Uganda, enough to say they were very sad and difficult times,†she said. “But when we left I had no idea, or even a wish, to become a model. Of course I admired the likes of Iman, but the idea I would one day be like her? No way.â€
She settled with her family in the city of Los Angeles and one day in 1992, while she was at a mall, fashion photographer Peter Bodwell, spotted her. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Represented by the modeling agency IMG, Kiara has featured in all the major fashion magazines and fashions parades. She has participated in fashion spreads/ covers with the likes of L’Oreal, Kenneth Cole, Kiz Clairborne and Emporio Armani, among others.
In 2000, she made CNN news when she was knocked off her bike by a truck in New York. The driver, who had no driving license, knocked her down as she cycled along.
Last year, New York Social Diary.com reported that she was seen at the posh Michael’s restaurant on Fifth Avenue, where Bill Clinton had gone to attend a luncheon organised by ABC TV, and among the people there were actor Billy Crystal, television personality Diane Sawyer, Gov. Ann Richards and Liz Smith, Kiara was not on that table, but with members of the cast of the TV documentary It Girls, which premiered last April.
Efforts to get another interview with Kiara failed as her mother, who lives in Los Angeles, told Weekend Vision that Kiara was somewhere in Japan.
Thumbs up to her.Ends
She is routinely referred to as a supermodel by the Western media, but does anybody in Uganda, her country of birth, know her name?
Kiara Kabukuru, born in 1976 in the western town of Mbarara, has scaled heights no Ugandan has dreamt about. She does her job quietly, with no fuss, although she does not hide the act that she was born in Uganda. So why do few people in this country know about her?
“Many of the models have become famous because of their style of living, and maybe because the gossip columns are all over them, but Kiara lives quietly and does not cause too much fuss,†Sylvia Owori, owner of the Ziper Modeling Agency said. “And in any case these days Kiara does not do much catwalk modeling, she concentrates on photo shoots. There she has been all over the place.â€
In 1997, Kiara appeared on the cover of American Vogue magazine, one of the most coveted spots in the fashion world. She became the first African girl to do so, and it so happened that in that very same issue, one of the fashion icons of the world was explaining why it was very difficult for black girls to make it big in the international world of fashion and modeling.
As it so happened, Naomi Campbell had just been bumped off the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in favour of white model Kate Moss. So American Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour, explained in the editor’s note why that could have happened.
“The colour of a cover model’s skin (or hair for that matter) dramatically affects newsstand sales,†she wrote. “Although it is rare for an issue of Vogue to go to the printer without one or more black models featured prominently inside, they appear less often than I, and many of you, would like on Vogue’s covers.â€
That did not stop Kiara from doing what the editor thought was very difficult. She did not stop there, next she appeared on the cover of the Dutch edition of Vogue.
Just who is Kiara Kabukuru? In 1997, when Face of Africa, M-Net’s modeling initiative was launched, Kiara was chosen to be its Patron, to be an example to young girls all across Africa.
In an interview with The New Vision via Satellite link, she talked about what it took to go from Mbarara to the catwalks of international fashion.
“I’d rather not talk about the circumstances under which my family left Uganda, enough to say they were very sad and difficult times,†she said. “But when we left I had no idea, or even a wish, to become a model. Of course I admired the likes of Iman, but the idea I would one day be like her? No way.â€
She settled with her family in the city of Los Angeles and one day in 1992, while she was at a mall, fashion photographer Peter Bodwell, spotted her. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Represented by the modeling agency IMG, Kiara has featured in all the major fashion magazines and fashions parades. She has participated in fashion spreads/ covers with the likes of L’Oreal, Kenneth Cole, Kiz Clairborne and Emporio Armani, among others.
In 2000, she made CNN news when she was knocked off her bike by a truck in New York. The driver, who had no driving license, knocked her down as she cycled along.
Last year, New York Social Diary.com reported that she was seen at the posh Michael’s restaurant on Fifth Avenue, where Bill Clinton had gone to attend a luncheon organised by ABC TV, and among the people there were actor Billy Crystal, television personality Diane Sawyer, Gov. Ann Richards and Liz Smith, Kiara was not on that table, but with members of the cast of the TV documentary It Girls, which premiered last April.
Efforts to get another interview with Kiara failed as her mother, who lives in Los Angeles, told Weekend Vision that Kiara was somewhere in Japan.
Thumbs up to her.Ends