Renowned Fashion Label, Prada, Casts The First Ever Black Model in Two Decades & She’s Kenyan!

Italian fashion label specializing in luxury goods for men and women, Prada, has cast a black model for their fall/winter 13 campaign for the first time since 1994.

UK’s Daily Mail reports that, Malaika Firth, a Kenyan-born, U.K.-raised model, is one of seven in the new ad campaign, starring alongside the likes of industry heavyweight Christy Turlington and Chinese model Fei Fei Sun. Prada rarely hires Asian and black models so the 19-year-old’s inclusion in the campaign is something of a milestone.

Malaika, who is on Premier Model Management’s books and has been modelling since 2011, is the first black face of Prada since Naomi Campbell in 1994. Between Campbell’s runway appearance in 1993, and 2008, when Jourdan Dunn took to the catwalk, Prada had no black models in any of its women’s runway shows.

The Twittersphere seem extremely excited about the big news. One user wrote: ‘What took so long? “@GlobalGrindStyl: Prada breaks two decade hiatus by casting a black model in ad campaign.” Another added, “Prada wakes up, casts black model for first time in 19 years.”

Below is Malaika introducing herself;

[Daily Mail]