How To Break Through: Jourdan Dunn's Cover Story

Jourdan Dunn chatted with Net-A-Porter’s The Edit magazine where she discusses racism in the Fashion Industry, her Son, and so much more. She is just 22, but still managed to cover Vogue Italia, being the first black model to walk for Prada in over a decade and caring for a son with sickle-cell disease. Read the copied cover story after the jump:

Models are tall and thin – that's a given. But Jourdan Dunn, well, she could almost make Naomi Campbell look squat. Towering in the Alaïa leopard-print stiletto boots she's wearing this morning, she must be at least 6ft 4in.
“I know,” she says, almost ruefully, “and tall girls aren't supposed to wear heels, are they? But hey, I'm a giant... so what?” Sunk deeply in an armchair, her knees almost up to her chin, Dunn, 22, is wearing what she always wears when she doesn't have to dress up: tight black Topshop jeans (waist 26, length 34) and a casual sweatshirt – this particular one is by LA-based designer Brian Lichtenberg and has Grace Jones on the front of it.

Reminiscent of a young Beverly Johnson (the first African-American woman to appear on the cover of US Vogue in 1974) with that caramel skin and those feline cheekbones, Dunn comes across as both otherworldly and everywoman. Though her heritage is Jamaican, there is something about her almond-shaped eyes that looks almost Chinese. “People often say that,” she says. “My great grandmother was half Syrian... perhaps it's that.”

Discovered at the age of 14 while wandering around the sunglasses department of her local Primark store, Dunn, from west London, first hit the public consciousness when, at the age of 17, she appeared on the Prada catwalk – the first black model to do so since Campbell 11 years earlier. Since then, she has appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia, won Model Of The Year at the British Fashion Awards, appeared at the Olympic Closing Ceremony and fronted campaigns for Burberry, Yves Saint Laurent and Tommy Hilfiger.

Not just a model then, but an icon in the making, up there, as she is, with that embarrassingly small clutch of black women – Chanel Iman, Joan Smalls and Liya Kebede among them – who have made it all the way to the top.

There were times, however, when Dunn would be on her way to castings and told to turn back because the client “didn't want any more black girls”. There was even one instance when a makeup artist announced on a shoot that she didn't want to make-up Dunn's face because she herself was white and Dunn was black.

The model admits that in the past, discrimination like this has upset her, but a tremendous sense of self-belief, instilled in her by her mother, has always seen her through. “I grew up wanting to be my mom,” she says now. “She always seemed to make things work without ever complaining. She whips me into shape.”

Like her mother, Dunn, too, is a young single mom. It was just months after she'd been crowned Model of the Year in 2008 that she found out she was pregnant with

her son, Riley, now three. Soon after Riley was born, his father, the model's long-term boyfriend of five years, was sent to prison for possession of cocaine with intent to sell. “I guess you could say that I have been through quite a lot,” she says with a slightly rueful smile.

So how has it all worked out? Well, Dunn makes sure Riley sees his father on the weekends, “because even though we aren't together, I want his dad to be in his life.” She also enlists the help of her mother to help look after Riley, who suffers from sickle-cell disease, an inherited, non-contagious blood disorder. “I'm blessed to have her,” she says of her mom's hands-on care, looking down at the tattoo of her son's name inked between her thumb and forefinger.

 “It's scary every time he has what they call a 'crisis', you know, when he has to be rushed to the hospital for more oxygen and blood transfusions...”

These “crises” occur when abnormal red blood cells clog up healthy red blood cells, preventing oxygen travelling through the blood stream. The result is episodes of extreme pain that can last for minutes or days, depending on the attack. It's little wonder, then, that Dunn is using her fame to raise awareness of the condition by supporting the Sickle Cell society (sicklecellsociety.org).

A lot to bear, then, on those delicate shoulders, but Dunn is a very, very positive soul. Aside from the personal support from her mother, she also has support from great mentors in the industry, the makeup artist Pat McGrath and stylist Edward Enninful, for example, and friends including fellow model Cara Delevingne (“my crazy little sister”) and Karlie Kloss (who is “like a stepmother to Riley”). Rihanna, who cast her to front her recent River Island campaign, is an admirer, as is Jay-Z, on whose YouTube channel, Life + Times, she has her very own cooking series, Well Dunn with Jourdan Dunn.

As for the future, the plan is to move to New York and, after she has checked out schools, nannies and neighborhoods, for Riley to relocate with her. Naturally it will be a wrench – every time he sees a suitcase splayed out on the floor, he starts crying, which breaks her heart. "But I don't want to uproot him if I'm only going to come back after six months,” she says earnestly. “If ever I'm sad, I just have to remember, I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing it for him.

Read the original story and shop her entire look here.

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