Malick Bodian

Malick Bodian is a Senegalese model and photographer whose career connects international fashion with an ongoing exploration of his home country. Born in Mbao, he moved to Italy to join his mother at thirteen and later lived in Corsica, where he was scouted. Modeling took him to Paris in 2018 and opened a profession he had never planned to pursue.

His early runway work included Valentino and Louis Vuitton, followed by Givenchy haute couture. He appeared in Dior Men’s spring-summer 2019 campaign, photographed by Steven Meisel, and returned for the house’s winter 2020 advertising. Campaigns for Fendi and Valentino added to that photographic career, while runway appearances remained a continuing part of his work.

Traveling as a model also gave Malick reasons to make his own photographs. He began taking pictures in 2018, developing a self-taught practice that expanded from travel images into documentary work and fashion assignments. His experience in front of the camera became part of an education in how images are made, alongside his interest in cinema.

Photography brought him back to Senegal with a different purpose. Over four years, he traveled through the country, recording family ceremonies and everyday life for his first monograph, Sénégal, Voyage Temporel. The project became an exhibition in 2024, shown during OFF Paris Photo and OFF Biennale Dakar. His professional photography developed alongside it, with assignments for Bottega Veneta and Wales Bonner, as well as magazines including Vogue and M Le magazine du Monde.

In a 2025 interview with the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, Malick described a common purpose behind both professions. Modeling could help others recognize their own beauty, while photography offered him a way to show an affirmative view of Africa. “I want to show the positive side, the life,” he explained. Fashion had changed how he saw himself; his own pictures extended that attention to the people and places he knew.