If you want proof of the transformative power of fashion, then watch the models as they arrive for a couture show. They turn up backstage devoid of any make-up, most of them with their hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, and wearing their own stylishly scruffy clothes. They could be any group of pretty young girls, although a little taller and a lot skinnier than most. Within hours these coltish creatures, all chipped nails and skinny jeans, morph into visions of otherworldly glamour.

Here, inside the thrilling world of extravagance and dress-up, reality is always fortified into fantasy, resulting in makeovers that are nothing short of breathtaking. Everything is on a grand scale because it is couture. It is in this environment of frantic hair and make-up, latex, glitter, plastic that models from the horn of Africa, Waris and Liya, came into the limelight-separately.

However, Liya, recently named the newest face of Estee Lauder cosmetics, the first black to serve as their representative in the company's 57-year history compelling the New York Times to write an article about how she has successfully triumphed over the challenges that face models of colour in today's industry. Her career in many ways similar to Waris Dirie’s meant that she was best suited for the role of Waris in the film Desert Flower.

Liya Kebede not a busty and curvy swimsuit model as Trya Banks and Naomi Campbell were doesn’t shout that she is a top model. She was spotted by an art director while a student in her native Ethiopia which she left after completing her studies ‘to give modelling a try’.

We feel that she is as surprised as we are that she is an actress too. She was in Robert DeNiro’s Good Shepherd (2006) and Andrew Nicol’s Lord of War (2005) – maybe because they were small parts. Well, now she is in a lead role and there is no hiding from this fact. This film unites a superb British cast: Silver Bear winner, Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) Craig Parkinson (Control), Juliet Stevenson (Mona Lisa Smile), Timothy Spall (Harry Potter) and Meera Syal (Scoop).

Desert Flower is a $16 million adaptation of Waris Diries' bestselling autobiography, recounts her rise from a childhood in the Somali desert to the catwalks of the international fashion business. In her book, Dirie speaks out against the custom of female circumcision, still practised among certain tribes in Somalia and other African countries.