Aweng Chuol Covers Porter Edit in 'Limitedless' Sharp Tailoring Images by Ekua King
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Rising star — good story scar and all — Aweng Chuol is styled by Natasha Wray in strong-woman, vibrant colors, tailoring in vibrant, plenty-of-pink hues from Alaï, Bottega Veneta, Chloé, Givenchy, Isabel Marant, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, The Row and more.
London-based photographer Ekua King [IG] captures Chuol in ‘Limitless’ for Porter Edit Feb. 22, 2021. In an interview with LIV LITTLE that’s a bit more circumspect than her recent ELLE UK one, the self-described, nearly-obsessed over-achiever Aweng Chuol talks about her experiences with mental health, hopes for the future and manifesting her dreams into reality.
5 Facts We Already Know about Aweng Chuol
She’s walked the runway for Rihanna, starred in Beyoncé’s Black Is King, is studying law.
Aweng comes from a very large family as the first of 12 siblings. Her family moved to Sydney, Australia after leaving Kenya and her father behind. Aweng’s father remained fighting in the South Sudanese Civil War. He died in 2013 of complications of a gunshot wound.
Chuol was born in the famous UN Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. Many of the new models have come out of Kakuma; and it’s the one no-longer-a-model Halima Aden charges with exploiting her as a young girl for taking her picture to raise awareness and donations around refugees in Kakuma.
Living in Britain at present, Chuol is studying to be a lawyer and an actor. She also plays the piano and is a total over-achiever who holds herself to a very high bar.
Aweng Chuol married her wife Alexus Ade-Chuol (note that Aweng’s official name is often Aweng Ade-Chuol) at the end of 2019. The event was well-covered in the fashion press, causing Aweng to be the subject of toxic attacks from homophobic members of the South Sudanese community. The young superstar tried to commit suicide last year and was hospitalized during COVID — but not for that deadly disease.
On a positive note for which I have gratitude, as Aweng had me very concerned in her ELLE UK interview, the Black beauty’s personal team not includes a therapist and a life coach, besides her management and modeling agent — all focused on her mental wellbeing.
Aweng has known much adversity in her life, and she’s such an alpha-woman who was then subjected to tremendous online abuse from her social community of South Sudan. This is difficult stress for any human to bear — and especially an alpha woman determined to conquer the mountain who finds herself called a national disgrace.
Chuol is now pulling back from presenting so much of her relationship and also her personal self generally online.
Like increasing numbers of models, Chuol embraces political activism. “I started wanting to know what’s going on in the world and that can become overwhelming,” she says, particularly for someone who describes herself as an empath. “I’m very hopeful, in a sense, for the future generation. I hope we do get it together and get a hold of climate change and the planet.”
Suddenly, in ending the interview Aweng returns again to emphasize the end of a heavy year, in which as a collective we have mourned lives and an existence gone, that she is remaining full of hope. “I’m a very hopeful person, just by nature. I am hopeful for the world.”
