The World Of Grace

I had the privilege to sit down with Grace Gangi, one of our very own models. Not many people know this, but Grace was the first model we invited to be a part of the magazine when our team was first being assembled. We like to refer to her as "The First Lady of Seventy7". Although these past few months have been Grace's first experiences with modeling, she has approached every shoot with humility and a willingness to do anything we ask of her. We can't thank her enough for trusting us to debut her to the world. So, it's with great pleasure that we welcome you to the World of Grace.

How did you feel getting that first initial call from Adrian (CEO of Seventy7) about being a part of 77?

GRACE: Well, when I first got the call I'm like kind of excited because you know everybody's  always talking like, you should model, you should model, and I did want to, but nobody really believed in me. I didn't take it seriously, because I didn't really have that much support. Even though everybody would be like, you're so pretty. Even my cousins would be like, you should model, but not getting that from my mom or my dad or not getting the help from them kind of turned me off from the idea. So when Adrian gave me that first call I don’t know…it felt like sign that everything was finally working out for me.

From doing Issue 1 till now, has any part of this experience been nerve racking for you?

GRACE: I can say before every shoot, I was like, I don't know, ‘cause I don't really, I always expect something bad is gonna happen, or I'm gonna like let people down especially during the last shoot. I really don't want to let these people down. I feel like I was like, I don't know. I'm so nervous.

Dzuptr: Well, for future reference, don't ever feel afraid about those things because we're always  gonna walk you through what needs to happen and make you feel as comfortable as we can, so you can do the job that we've been asking you to do. We're here for you, if anything.

GRACE: You guys are so kind!

Did you always dream about being a model?

GRACE: Yeah I really did, around sixteen is when I really wanted to strive to become one. At first though, I couldn’t really see it for myself. People who always tell me you’re so beautiful, you’re so this and that, but I never saw myself as THEM, one of those models like gorgeous.

Dzuptr: Wow this is kind of absurd to me because truly I feel like you have the capabilities to be Naomi Campbell , a Luna. You can very well be on their level.

GRACE: I hope so

Dzuptr: Nah man you can’t hope for that kind of stuff. That’s the stuff you demand from the world.

We recently did the shoot for this editorial. What was like having a whole crew dedicated to make you look the best you’ve ever looked in your life?

GRACE: First I want to say thank you to you. That was the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. At the shoot, everybody catering to me and doing stuff for me, I was so overwhelmed with joy and happiness. I felt so…I can't even explain…it was unbelievable because I really want this to be my life. Y'all are just so amazing and I can't thank y'all enough for it. Being there, doing that shoot, I had no problems on the road. I was carefree. I had to be like my happiest at that shoot. 

Dzuptr: Oh wow. Well that makes me happy because I definitely wanted to be as hands-on as possible for that shoot. Then when I found out I had to work that whole day, I was so sick to my stomach. So when y'all pulled up and it seemed like literally everything was going great I was very relieved. Actually King called me like an hour or two before that. And he was like, it's going amazing. Like everything's going well. Everyone's like having a good time, good energy, blah, blah, blah. And then y'all came and it was still that even more so and you looked fucking fantastic.

Now I would assume you don’t normally dress like that, was it in any way uncomfortable for you?

Grace: No, it was actually kind of exciting like everything was so cute. For a lot of the looks, I would look at them like, “how is this going to go?” But the way that they put everything together and how it just went, I was just like wow. Deo, he really did that  because I wasn’t sure how he was going to style me.

Dzuptr: For real though, because we were working intensively with Deo day and night just seeing the pieces come together and then just kind of hoping because it's difficult to try to design these looks without the model really being ther.

Grace: They ate that. Yeah, for sure. I mean they ate the whole thing.

Dzuptr:  I'm glad you were overjoyed in the experience because there's definitely more things like that to come. This is only the stepping stone of a very long lasting career in your modeling career.

What's been your experience growing up in a Sudanese family?

Grace: Bro, Sudanese parents are so super duper strict and my parents are like christian and I don't even know how to describe it. You know what it’s like growing up in an African household where the boys get treated differently than girls. The girls are always pushed to be perfect. That's part of the reason why I can't do modeling because my dad and his Christian friends believe it's not modest like models are not modest so didn't support that. He just put that idea down and told me, “you need to be a doctor.” You need to be this and that. You need to do this. We got to live by these set of rules and it wasn't me.