Jourdan Dunn

The model who speaks her mind: Jourdan Dunn

Jourdan Dunn caused controversy in February with her comments about the near-absence of black models on the catwalk. She was named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in November

Jourdan Dunn did not mean to cause such a fuss. But when, in the middle of London Fashion Week in February, a journalist asked her to comment on whether it was strange that such a multicultural city had so few black faces on the catwalk, she couldn't help but agree. "I said: 'Yes, you're right,'" Dunn says now, almost a year later. "That was it. That was all."
It triggered a media storm. Soon, commentators were tripping over their Louboutins to ask why our catwalks were so white. Fashion designers hit back by claiming they were only meeting the public demand for aspiration by using predominantly white, blond women to plug their wares. Then Naomi Campbell announced her intention to set up an agency specifically for black models. In July, Italian Vogue responded by publishing an all-black edition that became one of the bestselling issues of all time. Dunn, an 18-year-old from Greenford, west London, was on the cover.
"It was a bit of a shock that it became such a big deal," she says when we meet, her long limbs splayed across a hotel sofa. "It's been happening for so long that if you asked any other black model, they would say the same thing."
But, this year, Dunn seems to have successfully bucked the trend. She kicked off 2008 by becoming the first black model to appear on the runway for Prada for more than a decade. She has since been courted by photographers including Steven Meisel and designers such as Matthew Williamson and Jean Paul Gaultier. In November, she beat Agyness Deyn and Lily Cole to be named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards.

It has been an extraordinary journey for Dunn who was spotted, aged 14, in the Hammersmith branch of Primark by an agent from Storm models. "It was really exciting being spotted," she says. "I'd been watching a lot of America's Next Top Model and I knew who Storm were, that they represented Kate Moss. It was like 'Wow, they think I would be right for them?'"
Does she think the fashion industry will change and become more representative of different ethnicities? "I hope so. I don't want it just to be this season's phase. Younger girls who read magazines need someone they can identify themselves with, so it shouldn't just be skinny blondes."

Despite her meteoric success, Dunn remains less than enamoured about her own body shape. She confesses, when I ask, that she does not think she is beautiful and cannot think of her best physical feature. "My issue when I was growing up was always my weight," she says. "I would see Beyoncé or J-Lo in music videos and I would ask, 'Why can't I be like them?' They have a curviness, a sexiness. Coming from a black [Jamaican] community, curves are celebrated and being the skinny black girl when I was growing up was hard."
Her mother, Dee, a secretarial temp, is "5ft 6in and curvy" and Dunn says she gets her athletic physique from her father, who left the family home when she was three. Dunn's younger brothers, Antoine, 15, and Kain, 11, still use "skinny girl" as the ultimate insult in a sibling argument.
"We tease each other and we're constantly bickering," Dunn laughs. "They keep me grounded. There have been times when I'm flying back home from somewhere and my Mum will ask my brothers to pick up dog poo from the garden and they will say 'Why do we have to do it? Why can't Jourdan do it when she gets back?' So I will fly in from New York and be picking up poo as soon as I walk through the door."
Still, given her impressive professional debut, Jourdan Dunn is probably one of the few women who could make Marigolds and dog poo look stylish.

The Observer,
21 December 2008