Ghanaian-British supermodel Amanda Annan may have entered into modelling by chance but her career so far has been nothing short of amazing. The slinky beauty says she did not choose modelling but modelling chose her. While working part time in a clothing store at age 16, she was head hunted by the world famous Unique Model Management agency. Within two weeks Amanda was shooting her first campaign for Vidal Sassoon. With her beauty and grace, it was not before long she started flying round the world for shoots and runway assignments in London, Paris, Milan and New York.
Amanda's origin is as interesting as her career: her father is from Ghana and his father moved to Ghana as a child from Brazil in search of his roots; while her mother is from Martinique but grew up in Lagos. However Amanda was adopted at a young age and grew up in London. As the niece of Kofi Annan, she picked up plenty ambassadorial traits which she deploys in a number of charitable organizations like the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED), as well raising money for the African Film Commission.
After gracing the covers of magazines like Elle Magazine, Women to Women, Photo Magazine and Fashion News, Amanda has also ventured into new territories including acting and broadcasting among others. Amanda is extremely passionate about helping the underprivileged and is doing a lot of works in that end. I caught up with Amanda to find out more about her career as a model, her desire to help the least fortunate, her ambitions and many other things that make her tick.
Ameyaw Debrah: What went through your mind when Unique Model management approached you?
I was actually quite lucky as in that I was discovered by a make up artist, who then went on to introduce me to Unique Model management which at that time was one of the best model agencies to be with. I was a bit nervous going into the agency for the first time, as I used to be a very shy kid, however the nerves soon disappeared and Unique Model Management became a great growing ground for me.
Ameyaw Debrah: What have been your highlights as a model since then?
Wow! So much has happened in such a short space of time. I have been the face of M-Net Africa; Vodafone Campaign; done a Vogue Cover; Ebel watches of Switzerland; been on set of Bond movie and worked with Alexander McQueen and so much more. But I think the best thing to happen to me in my career was it gave me the opportunity to meet Nelson Mandela.
Ameyaw Debrah: What have been the challenges?
Where do I start? There is the skin colour thing of course - models not getting as much work as they should because they are not of the right ethnicity; but so much has changed since I started and things are getting much better. I know the colour thing sounds cliché, but the truth is sometimes hard to hear.
Jaged Renegade
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment