"The Lemlem collection has almost sold out at Matches, as it's quite hard to find stylish cover-ups in pure cottons, and the fits and lengths are really on-trend," says Matches buyer Georgina Gainza. And as one of few ethical ranges to make it into high-end fashion stores Matches and, it is doing phenomenally well. Now the label offers womenswear, gifts and accessories – simple, soft striped shawls and dresses. "Once mums bought pieces for their kids, of course they asked for bigger sizes for themselves," Kebede boasts. She giggles quietly and sighs: "I promised to come up with something to help." She launched Lemlem (meaning "to flourish" in Amharic), a line of cotton children's clothes hand spun and embroidered in Ethiopia, as a way to inspire economic independence in her native country. It was on another trip home, a star by now, that Kebede met the local traditional weavers, who were losing their jobs due to a decline in demand. Liya Kebede (far left) on the cover of Vogue's May 2009 issue. The whole village carried her to hospital, but she died on the way." These are preventable deaths, she stresses. The last time I visited, I was told about a local woman who started bleeding halfway through delivering her child. "In these villages there are no roads, let alone hospitals. She talks, for instance, about the importance of providing torches to villages in developing countries, to light midwives' paths to the houses of women with no electricity, but she's clear, too, that there's no small solution to a global problem. While Kebede's aims are ambitious, she's particularly good at promoting the small, gentle steps towards life-changing aid. Funding advocacy and awareness-raising projects, as well as providing direct support for community-based education and training, the foundation's success led to her recognition by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. Her mission was to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality in Ethiopia, and around the world. In 2006 she set up the Liya Kebede Foundation. When, in an African community like that, a mother dies, it affects everyone." It was such a tragedy – not only did she lose her daughter but the whole family was destroyed. "She couldn't afford food, let alone schools, so the baby was given away. Her soft accent leaps from drawl to drawl as she remembers meeting an elderly woman who, after her daughter died giving birth to her third child, was forced to bring up her grandchildren alone. "Every time I go back home I'm introduced to women who've barely made it." "There's a saying in Africa: To find out you are pregnant is to have one foot in the grave," she says. In Ethiopia a mother dies in childbirth every minute, leaving her baby 10 times less likely to survive past the age of two. It was when she returned to Ethiopia from the USA, where pregnancy is so celebrated, that she became involved in raising awareness of her home country's maternal health crisis. And then the way that New York shook her up, "the way it does everyone". She describes the "beautiful, raw land", the space. Taxis honk and men yell as she quietly talks about her childhood, growing up under "vast blue skies". We speak as she dashes through Manhattan between meetings. She took a role in a Robert De Niro film, she was named 11th in a Forbes list of the world's top-earning models, she had a son and a daughter, Suhul and Raee, then in 2005 she took a breath… In no time Kebede signed a £1.65m contract to become the first black face of Estée Lauder her face and long, generous limbs sold underwear, handbags, evening dresses and Tiffany diamonds. When she returned to Ethiopia, she met her husband, a hedge-fund manager 20 years her senior, and it wasn't until the second time, aged 23 in Chicago, where the couple had set up home, that it stuck. The first time, as a teenager, took her to Paris, where she failed, homesick. Later in the day," Ford continues, "when trying to remember what she looked like, I could only remember her eyes."īorn 32 years ago in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, Kebede was spotted twice. Liya projects an aura of goodness and calm that outshines even her extraordinary physical beauty.
Describing the day they first met, Ford recalls: "She looked me in the eyes, and I was quite literally stunned. In 2002, French Vogue declared May was "All About Liya" month, dedicating a whole issue to the African supermodel after the editor saw her in Tom Ford's Gucci catwalk show. F licking through Liya Kebede's pile of fashion magazine covers passes a calm and perfumed afternoon.
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