Personality of The Week: Agbani Darego

Ex Miss World and MBGN,Agbani Darego. Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite Darego known as Agbani Darego, born in Abonnema, Rivers State, Nigeria on the 22nd of December 1982 is a Nigerian Model. She was born into a family of eight and when Agbani was 10 years old she was sent to a boarding school to shield her from her mother who was suffering from breast cancer, but two years later her mother died. As a teenager she longed to become a model despite her father’s wishes, so Agbani, auditioned for the M.NET Face of Africa modeling competition but unfortunately she was not picked as a finalist. After High School she attended the University of Port Harcourt where she studied Computer Science and Mathematics, but had to drop out due to her work schedule. When When Agbani moved to New York, She enrolled at the New York University where she studied psychology and graduated in 2012. Before winning Silverbird’s MBGN, Darego was featured in print commercials for boutique chain Collectables. Then in 2001 she was crowned Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria which is a competition held by Silverbird every year. A few months later she was a contestant at Miss Universe and became the first Nigerian to place among the top 10 semi-finalists, finishing seventh overall. She was also the only black semi-finalist that year and the only one to wear the maillot instead of the more popular bikini during the swimsuit competition. After her stint at Miss Universe, she was invited by Naomi Campbell to take part in Frock n Roll a charity fashion show in Barcelona then she negotiated a modeling deal with Donald Trump’s management to establish links with modeling agencies in America. Also in November of that year she became the first native Sub-Saharan African to win the Miss World title. Agbani then spent her one year tenure going on goodwill trips and making scheduled appearances on behalf of the pageant. Shortly after her reign as Miss World she was represented by the London and Paris branches of Next Model Management and landed a three year contract with L’Oreal. She became the second black model to accomplish this aside from Vanessa Williams and was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue. Other brands she has modeled for are Avon, Christian Dior, Sephora, Target and Macy’s. Darego has appeared in Magazine’s such as Elle, Marie Claire, Allure, Trace, Stitch, Cosmopolitan and Essence. She has also worked with designers like Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior, Marc Bouwer, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Gianfranco Ferre. In Nigeria she has appeared in advertising campaigns for the hair care brand Gentle touch with supermodel Oluchi. She is currently the face of Afrik Air and has graced the covers of Complete Fashion, Mania, ThisDayStyle, Genevieve, True Love and TW magazine. Darego has judged many pageants, fashion and modeling competitions such as Miss England 2002, Mr. Scotland and Elite Model Look Nigeria 2012. She also launched a style and fashion reality show Stylogenic on Nigerian television in 2010. In 2012 it was reported that Darego was engaged to marry Timi Alaibe, a prominent politician however this was later denied on twitter. Darego released the promotional campaign for her denim line AD, AD by Agbani Darego will be available in stores and online in June 2013 and you can follow AD on Twitter: @AD_Jeans | https://twitter.com/AD_Jeans.