Five-Minute Time Out: Liya Kebede
The supermodel mom on her charitable new clothing line.
by Tammy La Gorce
June 5, 2009
Is clothing design a natural offshoot of modeling?
No — it wasn’t something I’ve always thought about at all. But being in fashion put me in a good position to be able to help the weavers. Things happen for a reason.
Do you now travel to Ethiopia a lot to make sure things are going the way you want them to?
I go back at least once a year, maybe a few times more. It’s sort of an organized situation there now. We’ve already done the difficult work of getting it up and running. Now it’s amazing for us to watch the craftsmanship that comes out of there. They’ve
latched onto the idea of exceptional work, and it’s really great to see they’re getting it. At first it was really funny because when we’d send them designs, we’d be so specific about every inch of the fabric, or how we want the design to be this way or that
way. They thought we were loony. They thought we were these crazy people in New York. With this J. Crew launch I think a lot more people will be aware of the line so it will expand — then we’ll be able to hire a lot more people and we’ll really see the difference.
Is it a struggle to be a mom, a fashion designer, an ambassador, and a supermodel all at once?
You know, not really. I love that I have the chance to do all these different things. I’ve always been into different things, and the more things you do, the more things come up that you want to do. And see. I handle it very chaotically, though. I handle
what needs to be handled at any given moment and then go from there.
Do the kids respond well to the chaos?
My son is eight now, which is insane, so he’s used to it. And my daughter is three going on twenty. She loves it.
Do models obsess over changes in their bodies after childbirth more than non-models, do you think?
I don’t know; I guess I only know one side of the story. It probably depends on the model. If you’re going to go back into modeling you have to get right back into shape, that’s for sure. But actually I think the obsession about bodies has kind of reached
the limit with everybody. There are a lot of model mommies now. So many babies backstage at shows.
What do you think about how Americans dress their kids? Too grown-up looking? Chic?
I think it depends on the age. Younger kids, under ten, it’s all casual. Boys are harder to dress because there are not a lot of options for them. But girls are tricky once they reach the age of ten, because they do wear overly mature clothes sometimes, and
it’s a bit too much.
"If I ask my son to wear a a button-down shirt, it’s like the whole world’s collapsing."Why don’t more designers do clothes for that age group? Why not Lemlem?
I don’t know if it’s for us because of the way our clothes are made, the hand-weaving. We can’t go in a gazillion different directions. But if you’re going to do regular clothes, I don’t see why you wouldn’t make nice clothes for that age group. I don’t
know if girls buy the overly mature clothes because they like them and if that’s what’s driving the market, or if it’s that nobody’s giving them anything good. They do dress like little adults. I don’t know how my daughter will dress when she’s that age —
I’ll see what she comes up with and talk to you then.
Does your son have a personal style?
He’s a typical boy — T-shirts and jeans. If I ask him to wear a shirt, like a button-down shirt, it’s like the whole world’s collapsing.
Is it cool for him to have a supermodel as a mom?
It’s not something we talk about a lot. He knows what I do and he thinks it’s funny. I don’t know how he addresses it at school, but we try to keep it low-key. We don’t want it to affect his world.
That sounds like sensible mom-speak. Are you a very hands-on mom?
Yes. I do my Lemlem work from my home office. I like to be here when the kids come home.
About the Author
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Tammy La Gorce is a freelance entertainment writer living in New Jersey with her son and daughter. Her work regularly appears in The New York Times, GRAMMY and other magazines. |
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