models

"I think it is great that I am nominated but until I achieve an actual win on the international scene and bring it home, I do not really think it carries as much weight."

"I am very excited for this nomination. Actually, this is my third international nomination to this day. And to be recognized by two different organizations in the past two years is very encouraging and helps in reassuring me that I am on the right track."

"That said, I do believe it is a great exposure for my brand/name/music to those people around the globe that do not know Zani Challe."

"I am committed to maintaining my reputation and professional standing, and I refuse to allow unfounded accusations from one individuals to undermine my hard work and achievement."

"Keep going women and girls.Stand up for yourself.You have earned the right to own and to work,the right to be independent and make your own"

"For me, use your voice. If you have a talent, you have a gift, you have a purpose and a ‘why’ - use it"

"Women and girls this is the time to seize your power"

"Art—be it music, films or paintings—is a powerful tool to unite people and create global movements"

"Sicily is a land that I adore, every time I have found wonderful and welcoming people. It is a land that has kept its culture and its sun intact, so as an African I find myself totally in this immense heat."

"The comparison with Naomi Campbell makes me happy because she is beautiful, but I think that this element has not influenced my success, because before coming to Italy I traveled all over the world making a career as a model. Once I arrived here I was already known and I didn't need anything else except my competence and determination."

"Anybody can do something, anybody can take action. And every action is important"

"I have used my music to support initiatives such as the Great Green Wall, and it has proved very effective"

"You have the right to Education and the right to equality."

"I believe in solution-driven projects. I believe in grassroots projects, I believe in people taking action. If you don't know anything about it there is internet today, you can find a community of people who are interested in the same topics"

"Growing up in the Sahel, I witnessed the land degradation caused by a changing climate, and saw how women and girls were disproportionately suffering the consequences"

"Fashion means so many things to me. Nowadays it has become a very important thing in people's lives. With it each of us can express our own lifestyle and personality."

"It's a vehicle to share messages, it's a vehicle for change"

"I quickly realized you cannot dissociate women and girls’ rights from climate change activism"

"Responsibility dictates behaviour and winning never dictated how I lived my life."

"The George Floyd incident was a perfect storm — for the world to see and understand that these changes have to be made."

"looks."One of the things I'm thankful for is that I have all my original body parts."

"No fillers, no replacements, no substitutes."This seems miraculous in a world she recognises as revolving around instant beauty at all costs."

"Except we never saw a black contestant on the cover."

"I had never before in my life felt second place or second class, so that was all new to me."

"A person of colour was not a typical beauty."

"costs."Everything is Hollywood. Everything is instant. Everyone strives for perfection the perfect look."

"Only when we got there did I realize that I was really in a competition."

"It was a hostile industry, but over the years I think I earned their respect."

"There are so many pre-conceived notions of what '60' is first and foremost 'old'."

"may help young people coming up have a sense of our history."

"In the quest for perfection the line keeps moving."

"I had just moved back to Trinidad, so I did it for promotion. I hadn’t been there for some years and wanted people to know who I was. I went into a local pageant without any expectations."

"We weren’t seeing ourselves in the papers at all. We figured we were there just to make up the numbers"

"I’d never even been on a stage before. Seeing the competitive spirit around beauty was very interesting."

"It’s an issue that’s touched the whole world, with protests everywhere, wherever there are people of colour."

"Retirement has traditionally been tied to the 60s and that image hangs over it, but it just doesn't fit."

"Without George Floyd we wouldn’t have seen all the rest that’s happened over the past few months, or understood what’s at the root of parts of America."

"I was dragged away by the old hag in a plane whose doors closed behind me like those of a safe: or a tomb. After my mutilation, this kidnapping was for me a second death"

"I embodied the most arrogant and admired kind of femininity, I who was supposed to be diminished"

"Let's draw attention to the religious, medical, psychological and social realities of this ancestral practice"

"I'm still the same person that I used to be, with the same passions and the same dreams. The only difference is that I've become a media target,"

"Since I was a little girl, I've had this passion for fashion and for what makes women look beautiful."

"I started going out and meeting women who took me with them. I followed them a little, I saw what they said, what they did... I felt a bit like a grown-up."

"I'm very proud of what I've achieved so far ... I'm concentrating on my brand for the time being, but I've got so many other dreams, and I'm constantly brimming with ideas."

"I arrived in France at the age of 10, with my mother and my little brother. She had divorced my father. She wanted to leave Algeria to join my grandmother here. We had a lot of family problems, we didn't have a house, we didn't know where we were going to live."

"As I am reaching the halfway mark in my life she says, I am full of projects and hope to bring them to fruition in my land of birth. Africa is looking forward... but for the time being, serenely, I cherish the pleasure to be back home, looking at the silvery sea like Ulysses after his long, eventful journey home"

"I was already behind because I didn't speak French and I was constantly changing schools. Once we had a more stable situation, I couldn't keep up anymore, I couldn't catch up. It was a shock for me because in Algeria, I was always top of the class and, suddenly, I found myself last. And all my dreams, everything I wanted to do since I was little, I knew it was no longer going to be possible. I had to find another solution."

"I was inflicted – with no anaesthetic, of course – this very private and irreversible mutilation in the name of ancestral custom"

"One day, my mother said we were going to the cinema. And I found myself the victim of a horror movie, an unimaginable trauma that I had never managed to talk about, until I found love and wrote In My Flesh"

"As I had grown into a young woman she says, I could no longer bear the authority of the very one who did not protect me. I had only one desire: to go away, from my mother, my family, my country"