Adot Gak: On Race, Reinvention and When 'Booked and Busy' Leads to Burnout

Adot Gak is a Sudanese-American supermodel, writer and former contributing editor at The Standard, named BFA Model of the Year, who has walked for Rick Owens, Vetements, Richard Quinn and Tony Ward, and fronted campaigns for SKIMS and Alexander Wang. Born in Sudan, Adot's family fled to Egypt when she was four; at nine, she witnessed a violent police attack on a group of Sudanese refugees in a Cairo park that killed her older sister, then just 13, and changed the course of her family's life forever. At ten, she relocated to Iowa with her mother, growing up as the child of immigrants before being scouted in a shopping mall and moving to New York to build one of the industry's most recognisable careers.

Since then, Adot has become known as much for her voice as her face — outspoken on the modelling industry's relationship with race, unafraid to set boundaries and say no, and using humour as a way of carrying what she's survived. In this episode, we talk about what "booked and busy" actually looks like behind the scenes, when she stopped waiting for permission to belong in fashion, and what she wants to build next.

In this episode we cover:

• Early memories of Sudan and her family's move to Egypt

• The police attack in Cairo that killed her sister, and how she holds that now

• Getting scouted in a shopping mall in Iowa and moving to New York

• Deciding to stop waiting for permission to belong in the industry

• Race and diversity in fashion: what's real progress and what's performance

• Being told she "looks like AI"

• Modelling as an "extreme sport" — burnout, boundaries and saying no

Mentions: 

‘Becoming’ - Michelle Obama

Links: https://www.instagram.com/adotthegreatt/

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