1 Gigi who?
When Aboah was named the model of the year at the British Fashion Awards in December, it was the culmination of a stratospheric 12 months by anyone’s standards. The 25-year-old Londoner was the only Brit on the shortlist, beating various social media sensations and supermodels-in-waiting (Bella and Gigi Hadid, Winnie Harlow and Kaia Gerber) to take home the title that celebrates “the global impact of a model, male or female, who over the last 12 months has dominated the industry”. Bagging the award is a sure sign that a model has made the transition from industry darling to someone even your nan has heard of – previous winners include icons Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, Agyness Deyn and Jourdan Dunn.
2 That #NewVogue cover
Gracing the cover of American Vogue, alongside the likes of Ashley Graham and Kendall Jenner back in March 2017 was a sign she’d more than arrived, but being chosen by new British Vogue editor Edward Enninful to grace his much-anticipated first issue in November cemented Aboah’s place in fashion history. “Being on this cover is the biggest thing that’s happened in my career,” said Aboah, who was also one of the first contributing editors announced for the title. The cover of “the new Vogue”, which featured Aboah in a Marc Jacobs turban, shot by Steven Meisel in his first editorial for a British magazine in 25 years, celebrated “the talented diverse creatives of Britain” and was only the sixth time a black model had appeared on the cover of British Vogue in a quarter of a century – Naomi Campbell accounting for four of those, Jourdan Dunn the other.
3 Speaking up
While in a different era supermodels were mainly seen and not heard, Aboah prides herself on being a voice for change. She’s leading the charge for more diversity in the fashion industry – most recently questioning “What is Normal?” in a new film for Google (see below). And in March, she made a film with her mother (the agent Camilla Lowther), talking openly about her struggles with depression, addiction and suicide for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s mental health charity Heads Together.
4 Gurl power
In 2015 Aboah founded her organisation Gurls Talk, an online platform that encourages young women to speak to each other about topics such as mental health, body image, addiction, the gender pay gap or “just whatever we want”. Using the hashtag #letsgetgurlstalking, the Instagram account now has 124k followers and had its first festival in July. Aboah says that she came up with the idea after going through rehab. “I got sober in 2014, and through my recovery, and being in and out of hospitals, it was kind of this realisation that I had quite a lot of responsibility to give back because I had been helped by all sorts of women throughout my journey,” she says.
5 Challenging beauty norms
With her shaved head, freckles and take-no-prisoners attitude, Aboah doesn’t look like any other model out there. And that’s the point. Although Kristen Stewart, Zoë Kravitz and Cara Delevingne (a long-time friend of Aboah’s) have all rocked buzzcuts recently, it was Aboah who arguably started the trend. “It was a kind of a f*ck-you to the industry, even if I wasn’t conscious of that at the time,” she says, of shaving her head. “I didn’t warn anyone, I just walked into my agency one day with all my hair shaved off. But they loved it. I love it, too – I’m definitely in no rush to grow it back.” Campaigns for H&M, Gap and John Hardy, and catwalk shows for Christian Dior, Chanel, Burberry and Alexander Wang followed.
Photograph: Peter White/Getty Images
6 Calendar girl
November was a huge month for the Ghanaian-American-English model. Not content with breaking Instagram with her #NewVogue cover, and becoming the face of Marc Jacobs Beauty, she also starred in this year’s headline-generating Pirelli calendar. Shot by British photographer Tim Walker and styled by British Vogue editor Edward Enninful, the Alice in Wonderland-themed calendar featured an all-black cast for the first time in its history. Aboah was transformed into Tweedle Dee, alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Naomi Campbell and Ru Paul.
7 And she can act, too
Aboah studied drama at Brunel University, and in March 2017 starred alongside Scarlett Johansson in the adaptation of Japanese Manga series Ghost in the Shell. “Yes I would like to give acting a go,” she told Glamour magazine. “I studied it for a long time, I just want to make sure when I do it I am able to put in as much effort as I do with modelling. So it’s going to come with time, and making sure I’d give it the time. I want them to take me seriously.” Better get used to this (impossibly beautiful) face – we’ll be seeing a lot more of it.
• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
