My unique looks were met with disapproval from birth. And to add insult to injury, I wasn’t a boy! Needless to say, I started my fashion life on the wrong foot, bracing myself for the crippling litany of put-downs that plagued me way into my teens. So the day I was approached at a hair salon in Paris and asked if I’d like to walk the runway, I thought it was some kind of cosmic prank!

Lesson? Whenever someone sees in you traits and qualities they find fault with, things that are not ‘the norm’, things they say you should change or ‘fix’, rejoice and be thankful because they’ve just pointed out to you your very best assets.

World’s only

ex-Parisian catwalk model
with two Master’s Degrees in International Law

Height

6 feet
1 mètre 82
18 hands

Eyes

Brown
Noisettes
Morenos

Hair

Untamed
Wild
Free

Fashion motto

Style is confidence

Fashion guru

MGM costume designer, Adrian

Favorite fashion era

1950s

The epithome of style

Garbo in As You Desire Me
Deborah Kerr in Dream Wife
Ginger Rogers in Roberta

Fave fashion flick

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?

Favorite accessory

Healthy, radiant skin

Can’t live without?

I love fashion but there isn’t anything I can’t live without except for sunshine, spring water and avocados!

First fashion splurge

A Jean-Paul Gaultier wool-felt military coat

Trendy or Timeless?

Timeless

What do you do to your hair?

Leave it alone!

Ndoema was unexpectedly catapulted into the world of high fashion after being discovered at a hair salon in Paris while she was attending law school. The next day, she was working professionally as a fashion model, gracing the catwalk while pursuing her studies in international law and international relations.

Springboarding to New York, Ndoema enrolled at the Parsons School of Design on a whim and went from student to guest lecturer in 48 hours. Leaping coastlines, the starry-eyed fledgling premiered her first runway in the heartland of Hollywood, where she took camera in hand, photographing her own avant-garde collections with an equally bold and cinematic eye. Ndoema’s striking photographic imagery immediately began appearing in an impressive array of Hollywood forums and fashion publications, spearheaded by a profile in Variety’s “Designing Hollywood” special issue.

Ndoema’s spectacularly staged multimedia events, at prime venues such as Hollywood and Highland, (home of the Oscars), as well as her own 60,000 square foot gallery in downtown L.A.’s historic Southern Pacific Railway building, have since attracted thousands of attendees and garnered high-profile corporate sponsorships including Shiseido, Vespa, Carlton International and Wilhelmina.