Early life

Onweagba grew up in the suburbs of Lagos

Lagos

Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...

, Nigeria with her two brothers and sisters. She is the daughter of a civil servant father and mother who was a nurse. When Onweagba was 16 years old, she won the "Face Of Africa" contest.

Discovery

She was urged by a family friend to enter into the M-Net

M-Net

M-Net is a subscription-funded television channel in South Africa, established in 1986 by Naspers....

 "Face of Africa" preliminary screening at the M-Net office in Victoria Island

Victoria Island (Nigeria)

Victoria Island is an affluent town that encompasses a former island of the same name that sits between Lagos Island and the Lekki Peninsula in the Lagos Lagoon. It is the main business and financial centre of Lagos, Nigeria. Victoria Island is one of the most exclusive and expensive areas to...

, Lagos. The agency groomed her to be one of Nigeria's entrants for the 1998 competition (now called the Nokia Face of Africa). This despite the fact that, growing up, she had maintained a relative ignorance towards fashion

Fashion

Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

 and modeling

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

. With the support of her family and friends, she decided to compete in the inaugural edition of the Face of Africa in 1998. This was the first-ever continent-wide model competition, organized by the South African channel M-Net in collaboration with Elite Model Management

Elite Model Management

Elite Model Management is a large modeling agency based in New York and Paris. It is a subsidiary of Elite World S.A.-History:Founded in France in 1972 by John Casablancas and Alain Kittler, it was rebought in 1990 by Nicholas Farrae. Elite World S.A. is the parent company of Elite Model...

. She won the competition. She was just seventeen years old. Elite Model Management awarded Onweagba a three-year modeling contract.

Career

After moving to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, where she still lives, Onweagba graced the covers of Italian Vogue

Vogue (magazine)

Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...

, i-D

I-D

i-D is a British magazine dedicated to fashion, music, art and youth culture. i-D was founded by designer and former Vogue art director Terry Jones in 1980. The first issue was published in the form of a hand-stapled fanzine with text produced on a typewriter...

, ELLE

Elle

Elle may refer to:*Elle, Central African Republic*Elle , a fashion publication*Ellé, a river in France*Elle , a female given name*Elle , a Sri Lankan game similar to baseball*Ælle of Sussex, a Saxon king...

, Untold, and Surface

Surface (magazine)

Surface is an American design, fashion, and lifestyle magazine based in New York City, New York. Created in 1993 by Richard Klein, Surface was based in San Francisco, California, until 2005 when the main offices moved to Brooklyn. Surface offices are now located at 360 Park Avenue South, 17th...

; she also was featured in Nylon

Nylon (magazine)

Nylon is an American magazine that focuses on pop culture and fashion. Its coverage includes art, beauty, music, design, celebrities, technology and travel...

, Marie Claire

Marie Claire

Marie Claire is a monthly women's magazine first published in France but also distributed in other countries with editions specific to them and in their languages. While each country shares its own special voice with its audience, the United States edition focuses on women around the world and...

, Allure

Allure (magazine)

Allure is the leading U.S. women’s beauty magazine, published monthly by Condé Nast in New York City. It was founded in 1991 by editor in chief Linda Wells, who has been at the helm of the magazine ever since. From its inception, the magazine has been widely recognized for its intelligent,...

, and other national editions of Vogue around the world. She became the face of campaigns for Gianfranco Ferré

Gianfranco Ferrè

Gianfranco Ferré was a fashion designer also known as "the architect of fashion" for his background and his original attitude toward creating fashion design....

, Gap

Gap (clothing retailer)

The Gap, Inc. is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1969 by Donald G. Fisher and Doris F. Fisher. The company has five primary brands: the namesake Gap banner, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta. As of September 2008,...

, Express, Banana Republic, and Ann Taylor, as well as working for Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie and beauty products. It is the largest segment of publicly-traded Limited Brands with sales of over US$5 billion and an operating income of $1 billion in 2006...

. Onweagba's runway experience has been with John Galliano

John Galliano

John Charles Galliano CBE, RDI is a Gibraltan-born British fashion designer who was best known as head designer of French haute couture houses Givenchy and Christian Dior , and his own self titled fashion house.-Family:He was born in Gibraltar to a Gibraltarian father, Juan Galliano, and a...

, Christian Dior

Christian Dior

Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...

, Costume National, Chanel

Chanel

Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, and Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani is an Italian fashion designer, particularly noted for his menswear. He is known today for his clean, tailored lines. He formed his company, Armani, in 1975, and by 2001 was acclaimed as the most successful designer to come out of Italy, with an annual turnover of $1.6 billion and a...

, amongst others, in London, Milan, Tokyo and Paris. She has worked with such notable photographers as Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel is an American photographer, who obtained popular acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue and his photographs of friend Madonna in her 1992 book Sex...

, Nick Knight

Nick Knight (photographer)

Nick Knight OBE is a British fashion photographer, documentary photographer, and web publisher—as director of SHOWstudio.com.-Life and career:Knight studied at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design....

, and Patrick Demarchelier

Patrick Demarchelier

Patrick Demarchelier is a French fashion photographer.-Life:Born near Paris in 1943 to a modest family, he spent his childhood in Le Havre with his mother and four brothers. For his seventeenth birthday, his stepfather bought him his first Eastman Kodak camera...

.

Beyond modeling, she tries to serve as a role model for other aspiring talents in Nigeria, especially young girls. She volunteers her time and her image for such NGOs as LEAP Africa (an entrepreneurship incubator) and NIPRO. She also is continuing her higher education, having studied for an associate's degree in the New York City educational system.

After her three-year contract with Elite expired, she signed with DNA Model Management

DNA Model Management

DNA Model Management is a modeling agency in New York City. DNA represents numerous notable models in the industry. Models include Natalia Vodianova, Amber Valletta, Doutzen Kroes, Linda Evangelista, Shalom Harlow, Raquel Zimmermann and Kristen McMenamy....

. A highlight of her career so far was when she was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is published annually by Sports Illustrated. It features fashion models wearing swimwear in exotic locales. According to some, the magazine is the arbiter of supermodel succession. In addition, the issue is a media nexus that in 2005 carried in advertising....

 four times, from 2005 to 2008.

In 2008, she launched a modeling agency in South Africa, OModel Africa, with offices in Johanesburg and recently in Cape Town. The 2008 winner of M-Net Face of Africa, Kate Tachie-Menson, was awarded a US $50,000 modeling contract by OModel Africa.

Personal life

Onweagba is married to Italian fashion designer Luca Orlandi. They have a 3-year-old son. Onweagba's first name comes from the Igbo language

Igbo language

Igbo , or Igbo proper, is a native language of the Igbo people, an ethnic group primarily located in southeastern Nigeria. There are approximately 20 million speakers that are mostly in Nigeria and are primarily of Igbo descent. Igbo is a national language of Nigeria. It is written in the Latin...

 and means "God's Work".

External links

• Official Website
• Oluchi on MySpace
  MySpace
  Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
  
  
• 2006 SI Swimsuit Issue gallery
• Oluchi Onweagba at AskMen.com