From a Viral Photo to Global Fame: The Inspiring Journey of Anok Yai

Yet, that single photograph opened doors that she hadn’t even known existed. With curiosity and courage, she stepped into the modeling world — a world that, for years, had shown little space for women who looked like her. As a dark-skinned Black woman, she had grown up rarely seeing faces that reflected her own beauty in magazines or advertisements. “When I was a child,” she once said, “I felt insecure about my skin tone because I didn’t see dark-skinned women in the media.”