Niane, Katoucha

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Katoucha Niane

1960-2008

Model, human-rights advocate

Katoucha Niane was a fashion model whose exotic, regal West African looks brought her fame and fortune in the 1980s. Often referred to as the first black French supermodel, she worked for some of the country's top fashion designers, including Thierry Mugler, Paco Rabanne, Christian Lacroix, and Yves Saint Laurent. After retiring from the runway in 1994, Niane became a women's rights advocate and campaigned to halt the practice of female genital circumcision, of which she herself had been a victim. Her death in Paris in February of 2008 was ruled an accidental drowning.

Niane was born on December 30, 1960, in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Her heritage was Fula, the dominant ethnic group in the country. Djibril Tamsir Niane, her father, was a prominent playwright, historian, and professor who had been educated in neighboring Senegal and France. Not long after Niane's birth, her father's translation of an important epic of West African history, Sundiata, was published in the West for the first time. The saga, which recounts the founding of the Mali Empire in the thirteenth century, is named after a central figure and nation builder.

At the age of nine, Niane underwent the ritual of female genital cutting that is still practiced in some parts of Africa. The procedure varies from place to place, but usually includes removal of some parts of the female genitalia. Historically, it has been done to prevent women from becoming sexually aroused, to preserve their virginity, to alter their appearance, or some combination of those reasons. In many parts of Africa religious and social customs make it a prerequisite for marriage. Niane later said she was tricked into the procedure by her mother, who had been educated abroad, like her father, but was nevertheless faithful to longstanding Fula traditions. Her mother told Niane she was taking her to the cinema to see the Beatles movie Help!, but instead took her to a woman who performed the procedure without anesthetic.

A year later Niane's father provoked the ire of Guinea's president, Ahmed Sékou Touré, and Niane was sent to Mali to live with an uncle to ensure her safety. In her autobiography, Dans ma chair (In My Flesh), published in France in 2007, she divulged that she was a victim of sexual abuse in that household. At the age of twelve she was reunited with her immediate family in Dakar, Senegal, where another branch of the family was well connected to the country's elite: Niane's aunt served as executive assistant to Léopold Sédar Senghor, the president of the West African nation. Niane married at age eighteen after becoming pregnant, but the marriage did not last, and she moved to Paris against the wishes of her family.

With her exotic looks, Niane found work in the French capital as a model for some of world's top fashion designers. Saint Laurent, especially, was inspired by her height, strong shoulders, and long neck. The French fashion press dubbed her the "Ebony Princess" or "Peul Princess," a French-language reference to her Fula heritage. In the following years she had two more children. During a period of drug and alcohol abuse, she lost custody of them for a time.

In 1994 Niane retired from modeling and founded the organization Katoucha pour la lutte contre l'excision (Katoucha for the Battle against Female Circumcision), which is generally known by its initials, KPLCE. In her autobiography she detailed the psychological damage that the mutilation had caused her and how, combined with the childhood sexual abuse, it had played havoc with her self-image and led to substance abuse. By the time Dans ma chair was published in France in 2007, Niane had been reunited with her children—then living in Senegal—and even traveled with them in Africa to raise awareness for her cause. She also started her own clothing line and served as the television host for Ebène Top Model, a French-African version of America's Next Top Model. In December of 2007 she started a new career as an actor, beginning production on Ramata, a film adaptation of a best-selling novel by Senegalese writer Abbas Ndione.

According to friends, Niane did not know how to swim. Nevertheless, she lived on a houseboat on the River Seine near the Pont Alexandre III, an arched bridge that connects the famous Champs-Élysées with the district that is home to the Eiffel Tower. She was last seen leaving a party on the evening of February 1, 2008. Three days later, she was declared missing by French law-enforcement authorities; her purse had been found near the door of the houseboat, although nothing appeared to be missing from it. On February 28 her body was found in the water some two miles away from the houseboat. The Paris coroner ruled her death an accidental drowning. Authorities speculated that Niane, who had been drinking, struggled to open the door—it reportedly was sometimes difficult to open and was at the end of a gangplank—and fell into the wintry Seine. She was forty-seven years old. "Her triumph in the French fashion scene in the 1980s," noted an obituary in the Times of London, "paved the way for black models such as Naomi Campbell to follow in her footsteps."

At a Glance …

Born on December 30, 1960, in Conakry, Guinea; died February 2, 2008, in Paris, France; daughter of Djibril Tamsir Niane (a writer and historian); children: Amy, Alexandre, and Aïden.

Career: Fashion model, 1980s-94; Katoucha pour la lutte contre l'excision (Katoucha for the Battle Against Female Circumcision, generally known as KPLCE), founder, mid-1990s-2008; clothing line, founder, 2007; Ebène Top Model (French-African television version of America's Next Top Model), host, 2007.