“This has upset me.”
Model Adut Akech has spoken out after a magazine printed a photo of another model beside an interview with her.
Australian publication, Who magazine, made the error, printing a photo of Flavia Lazarus instead.
Since then, Adut has taken to Instagram to say she has been deeply upset by the mistake.
The model spent the first five years of her life in a Refugee Camp, and spoke in the interview about how she wants there to be more open conversations about people’s attitudes to colour.
She wrote: “In the interview I spoke about how people view refugees and peoples attitude to colour in general. With the article they published a large photo saying it was me. But it was of another black girl.
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“This has upset me, has made me angry, it has made me feel very disrespected and to me is unacceptable and inexcusable under any circumstances.”
She went on to say that because of the contents of the interview, it’s inexcusable that the magazine published a picture of Flavia.
“Whoever did this clearly thought that was me in that picture and that’s not okay. This is a big deal because of what I spoke about in my interview. By this happening I feel like it defeated the purpose of what I stand for and spoke about.
“I feel as though this would’ve not happened to a white model. My aim for this post is not to bash Who Magazine -they have apologised to me directly – but I feel like I need to express publicly how I feel.”
She continued on to day that she hopes this mistake will be a turning point in the fashion industry because there needs to be more respect.
“I want this to be somewhat of a wake up call to people within the industry it’s not OK and you need to do better.”
Melbourne Fashion Week took to Instagram to share their disappointment, adding that it was “unacceptable” for this to happen.
