Johannesburg - Thando Hopa grew up in the shade, her porcelain skin protected by long sleeves and sunscreen until the day the South African decided to fight prejudice against albinos by becoming a model.
Petite and born with an inherited depigmentation of her skin from head to toe that can lead to discrimination and even death, Hopa entered the fashion world without the usual vital statistics required of a catwalk model.
Ghostly, with no make-up bar vivid fuchsia on her lips and hair sculpted to a magnificent bleached height, she exploded onto the cover of the first Forbes Life Africa back in 2013.
"It's one of the most beautiful pictures I've had taken," says Hopa, though it took years for her to grow comfortable with a bare face, her pale eyebrows almost invisible.
"I was much younger then. I could never go out without make-up... But as time goes on, your confidence just grows," she says. "It took years for me to get to a point where I could walk around without make-up."
Hopa is a lawyer operating in the heart of Johannesburg, not far from the offices where Nelson Mandela worked as an attorney in the 1950s.
AFP
