This ‘Instagirl’ Is Fighting Cancer With Spunk

There are few on the earth and much fewer within the leisure trade who’ve badassery sufficient to match that of Slick Woods. At 24, she is already a trendsetter in additional methods than one. Other than shattering the conventions of magnificence within the modelling trade, Woods additionally counts herself among the many unique handful a part of the ‘Instagirl’ membership. And regardless of most cancers, she is reclaiming new frontiers with each step ahead.

Woods is most identifiable by her gapped entrance enamel, full lips and shaved head that she has modelled prominently for pop icon Rihanna’s Fenty make-up label since 2017. Regardless of her shut affiliation with the singer, Woods is a solo pressure to reckon with each inside and with out the world of vogue and glamour. Having ticked a number of massive manufacturers off her guidelines, she has attracted the world’s eyes and ears to her as she redefines motherhood, Black identification, illness, gender and independence on her personal phrases. 

Who Is Slick Woods?

Woods, or Simone Thompson as she is initially named, is a Minnesota lady who was first found on the age of 19 by English mannequin Ashley Stymest. Buzz is that singer Kanye West too had been instrumental in launching Woods’ profession within the glamour trade. And when she kicked off, there has evidently been no trying again. Woods flaunts luxe names like Moschino, Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Yeezy and Fendi, to call just a few, on her resume.

Honoured with a membership to the digital ‘Instagirl’ legion, Woods is recognized as a type of selective few celebrities whose social media following charts six figures and up. The time period was first coined by Vogue in 2014 for the likes of influential fashions Cara Delevingne and Karlie Kloss, however has gone on to incorporate forthcoming batches of ‘influencer’ ladies just like the Jenners and Hadids.

At over 932K followers on Instagram, Slick Woods strikes about in that crowd as a lot as she does past it.

Supply: Slick Woods/Instagram

In 2019, Woods disclosed she was present process chemotherapy by means of an Instagram put up that mentioned, “How I really feel about chemotherapy, shout out to everybody that gotta undergo it.” It was later discovered that the mannequin had stage 3 melanoma (a kind of pores and skin most cancers).

“The very first thing I mentioned to my physician was at the least I’m bald already,” Woods was quoted saying. The 24-year-old has categorically pronounced to her followers to not deal with her “like a sufferer.”

Magnificence is about who you’re — it’s what we do with our time — giving what you don’t even have: Slick Woods

Slick Woods, A Power To Reckon With In The Trade

Woods was apparently of the assumption she was infertile. 5 months into her being pregnant in 2018, she realised that it was not so and she or he was nicely on her approach to motherhood on the younger age of twenty-two. Woods by means of the rest of her being pregnant rocked her child bump and the way! At a New York Style Week bash that yr, she sported a blazer suit that confirmed off her naked prime and stomach, complemented by neon eye make-up.

A number of days later, she gave beginning to a son with accomplice Adonis Bosso. Curiously, she went into labour at Rihanna’s Fenty lineup on the NYFW, strolling down the ramp for a lingerie assortment in all her glory, unbeknownst to her situation. She recalled afterward Instagram, “That is the face of a WOMAN IN LABOR,” posing in her ramp outfit.

Her high-profile limelight and public consideration haven’t stopped Woods from being vocal in regards to the shortcomings of her trade that conforms to sure beliefs of magnificence. “I’ve all the time been unapologetically BLACK, which has earned me the ‘eccentric’ label within the vogue industry—an area the place variety was not likely celebrated till my era of fashions started to floor,” she wrote in a 2020 feature.

Since Woods is on the intersection of many identities – a Black bisexual girl, a mom, a mannequin with a rags-to-riches story, and an impartial girl residing with a accomplice on her personal phrases – she is a related function mannequin to look as much as.

Views expressed are the creator’s personal.