“When I was little, I used to take my brother’s clothes,” says New York-based model Aleece Wilson, who grew up in Windsor, Ont. “I wanted to wear what he wore—like Dickies work clothes.” Wilson and her brother copied their dad, a truck driver who wore Dickies for work. And Wilson says she still wears the brand, which has since come out with a line for women.cover shoot, though, Wilson arrived in her uniform of all-black layers—a typical off-duty-model look. But Wilson is anything but typical.
The achievement must feel even sweeter given that Wilson was bullied while growing up—even by the three other black girls at her school who all relaxed their hair. So at about age eight, she convinced her mother to let her start relaxing her hair, too. “She didn’t want me to, but she saw how sad I was,” says Wilson, who only recently, at 24, decided to stop.