Supermodel Anok Yai takes a cover of the August 2024 issue of ELLE US The Future of Fashion issue. Alex White styles the Cairo-born daughter of South Sudanese parents in modern, sensual elegance lensed by Mario Sorrenti [IG].

ELLE assistant editor Juliana Ukiomogbe interviews Anok Yai, who always has a way with words, AOC writes affectionately. And Anok is willing to walk where angels dare not tread.

“I’m very dark,” she says, peering over her Prada shades. “I’m obsessed with knife-fighting. I love edgy movies—I’m obsessed with the Joker. When I started modeling, the industry wanted me to be the cute, bubbly, happy girl who’s just a ball of joy—that’s really not me.”

Growing up in a small town in Manchester, New Hampshire as the daughter of academic parents, Anok struggled a lot with anxiety, describing herself to ELLE as “the kid in the corner who didn’t talk to anybody” and always found herself “on the outside looking in.”

New Hampshire’s Diversity Index has increased over time, from 15% in 2010 to 24% in 2020; increases in the Diversity Index occurred in every NH County.

Still, Anok always knew she was meant for bigger things than her adopted Manchester roots.

“I always knew I was meant for bigger things than the small town that I came from,” she says. “I think that allowed me to feel comfortable with my separation from my peers.”

AOC has covered Anok Yai from her 2017 homecoming-weekend discovery at Howard University to opening the Prada runway show in February, 2018, as the first model of color in 20 years to do so. The drought went back to Naomi Campbell in 1997.

See Anok’s entire AOC archives here and also her most recent work posted below. As for the South Sudan beauty’s obsession with knife-fighting, we covered that passion in fall 2023.

Many young people of every skin color, sexual persuasion and history of not fitting into America’s more conservative towns with strict behavioral controls, are drawn to cities where they are more likely to fit in.

The research on exposure to advanced education and multicultural social groups is clear in their impact on individual values and political alignment. Even if those ties aren’t deeply personal — i.e. having close friends of a different skin color — the impact of exposure results in the majority of people being more broad-minded.