Leomie Anderson Is Exactly Who She Thinks She Is—That Girl

It’s noon on a Tuesday when Leomie Anderson bounces onto our video name, fresh-faced and radiant between exercise classes. She apologises for her off-duty look and the gym-café backdrop, however together with her post-exercise power, I will be able to already inform our dialog goes to be a just right one.

Although we have handiest met as soon as sooner than, years in the past, we greet each and every different like previous buddies. “I remember your face,” she says warmly. In an business the place folks generally tend to blur and introductions are fleeting, it is a flattering wonder—however now not solely sudden. As I recall, we had somewhat of a second; after some fangirling on my phase, we kiki-ed and snapped some footage in combination. And despite the fact that our first come upon used to be temporary, it has stayed with me. As a Black girl in media, you do not all the time in finding any person within the room who talks such as you, let by myself seems like you.

Anderson began modelling younger at 14, after being scouted at the streets of South London with burgundy hair. “It was a rinse, not a dye! I didn’t want anything permanent,” she clarifies, guffawing on the reminiscence. Since then, she has walked one of the crucial global’s maximum iconic catwalks—suppose Vivienne Westwood, Tom Ford and Burberry, to call only a few.

Comparisons to Naomi Campbell are inevitable—each are tall, Black, British fashions who command a room—however Anderson’s trail has all the time been distinctly her personal. She’s outspoken, elegantly assured and curious, with an impeccable monitor report for calling out business fake pas and addressing variety and inclusion within the type business. These are the characteristics that noticed her evolve from the girl from Wandsworth, who spent a lot of her time at the monitor as a tender athlete, into the multi-hyphenate twiglet she is lately. She has long gone directly to grow to be a TV presenter—lately fronting the BBC’s Glow Up, a fact pageant collection the place aspiring make-up artists struggle it out for a golden price tag to the arena {of professional} make-up—a two-time TEDx Talk speaker and, maximum lately, a survivalist on Netflix’s Bear Hunt. Throughout all of her achievements, it is her hobby in good looks, propelled via her modelling heritage, that has grow to be a company hobby level for Anderson.

“When I started, I didn’t even think makeup was made for Black people,” she says. “They couldn’t match my shade. They’d say, ‘Your skin’s so nice, you don’t need makeup.’ I thought it was a compliment until I realised [they just didn’t] have anything for me.” This realisation sparked one thing in Anderson. She taught herself make-up fundamentals, which ended in her making a YouTube video titled The Black Girl Survival Kit in 2016. She later joined Rihanna‘s groundbreaking Fenty Beauty marketing campaign, which showcased the logo’s 40-strong vary of basis sunglasses. “It shook up the industry,” she recollects. “It was a full-circle moment for me, being a part of that change, because it was something that I was very vocal about from the beginning of my career.”

Despite the loss of variety, incessantly discovering that she used to be an extraordinary—or infrequently the handiest—Black style within the room, Anderson’s sure courting together with her pores and skin, hair and frame has fortunately remained intact, which is a refreshing distinction for any person running in an business infamous for dangerous pressures and fostering emotions of lack of confidence.