Ugbad Abdi

Ugbad Abdi is an American fashion model. Abdi was born in Somalia. Her family fled the Somali Civil War, first to a refugee camp in Kenya, then in 2009, when Abdi was nine years old, to Des Moines, Iowa with the help of UNICEF. Shortly after graduating from high school in Des Moines, Abdi was scouted on Instagram. She visited New York for the first time to meet with agency representatives, and signed with Next Management. Abdi is Muslim, and began wearing hijab at the age of fourteen. She wears head coverings while modeling, and in 2019 became Fendi and Lanvin's first runway model to wear hijab. She has five siblings, two of which were born after the family moved to the United States. She speaks Somali and English.