Aamito Lagum
PHOTOS: CHRISTIAN BRYLLE. MODEL: AAMITO LAGUM/DNA MODELS. CASTING: DAVID CHEN. SPECIAL THANKS: FAST ASHLEYS.
Born and raised in Uganda, Aamito Lagum began her modeling career when she was just a teenager and famously won the first season of Africa’s Next Top Model in 2013. Since then, she has modeled in campaigns for Marc Jacobs, and walked to runway for the likes of Burberry, Hermès, and Erdem. “I am a hard-working woman with the heart of a playful girl,” she writes when we ask her to describe herself. “I am a black Ugandan with a white smile.”
THINGS THAT INSPIRE ME:
Travel. It shows me the world is too large to only focus on a small picture of myself.
THE PERSON I ADMIRE THE MOST:
My mother. She taught me what it was to be independent and ambitious. It seems like a cliché, but that is what she is to me.
AN EVENT I WISHED I’D WITNESSED:
The moment when Rosa Parks protested bus segregation.
QUESTIONS I CAN’T ANSWER:
Who am I dating now? What else would I be doing if I was not a model?
MY GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT:
Still working on it…
THINGS I’D LIKE TO IMPROVE ABOUT MYSELF:
My patience. I want to become more patient with those who have the nerve to let their view of the world impede ladies or children or anyone different from them.
GAMES I PLAY:
Candy Crush.
THINGS I’LL BE REMEMBERED BY:
My stare and my ambition.
SOME THINGS I’D RATHER FORGET:
I cannot think of what I would rather forget. My life’s memories are a string; to cut any of them off is to throw me off where I am now.
MY IDEA OF HAPPINESS:
Family, beds, and the beach.
ONE LAST FAVOR I’D LIKE TO ASK:
A hundred more favors.
For more from our “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” series, click here.