“You could fancy what you'd like, but as a woman, my mother always raised us to believe in ourselves. I am very grateful that my mother brought me up that way.”

South Sudanese-British model and designer

Alek Wek is a South Sudanese-British model and designer, born in 1977. She began her fashion career at 18, in 1995, and became known for reshaping ideas of beauty in the fashion industry. She is from the Dinka ethnic group in South Sudan and fled to Britain in 1991 during the civil war in Sudan. In 2015, she was named one of the BBC's 100 Women.