Duckie Thot, The Model Nicknamed “Black Barbie”
By Saifa KhanFeb. 4 2019, Published 5:54 p.m. ET
Meet the woman who’s sweeping everyone off their feet with her Barbie-esque features: 23-year-old South Sudanese-Australian model, Nyadak “Duckie” Thot, who started out as a contestant on Australia’s Next Top Model. Now she’s taking the modeling world by storm, and we are so here for it.
Her first major show was Kanye West’s Yeezy S/S 17 Show, which later helped her to land a beauty campaign for Fenty by Rihanna. Soon enough, people took to their social medias to point out the flawlessness in Duckie Thot’s features, nicknaming her “Black Barbie.”
But her road to popularity wasn’t such a smooth one, though. Thot’s expressed her frustration in the difficulty of getting gigs for most of her career because of her dark hue. In an interview with PAPER, she says, “I was just this little [black] girl in Australia just being like, ‘Oh yeah, I want to do modeling,’ but [while also] being in a country that doesn’t promote black models.”
There’s a serious lack of models that look like her, which is why she’s an advocate for diversity on the runway. Thot’s spoken up about the lack of representation and says in W Magazine that she hopes young women everywhere will be inspired by how she overcame her struggle: “I’m confident in myself now; I’ve found myself, so I think helping others through that is important, especially today.”
Last week, she walked her first show for Maison Valentino, leaving us all in awe with her grace. Duckie Thot is not stopping her climb upwards as a model, and clearly, she does not intend to stop blowing us away!
