From Spring Issue 57
Glass speaks to Ramla Ali whose epic story as a former child refugee turned boxing champ, turned fashion model and activist continues to win her many plaudits
Professional boxer, activist, author and model, Ramla Ali is sitting comfortably. Nestled into a rainbow-hued dressing gown, hood up and looking like the world No.2 IBF and WBA boxing champion she is, Ali is an open book, discussing the trials and tribulations of being a top athlete.
She has an epic life story that extends far beyond her years. No wonder she has a BAFTA and Oscar-winning team behind her biopic, In The Shadows, starring Letitia Wright in the lead, which is due to be released this year.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
But well before Hollywood came knocking, Ali’s story began in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. One of seven children, Ali and her family had to flee the war-torn country when her 12-year-old brother, Abdulkadir, was killed by a stray grenade while playing outside. With the trauma of war dominating her early years, there was little time to celebrate births, and she is unsure of her age – but she and her older sister decided on September 16, 1989, as her birthday.
After a perilous boat crossing to Kenya, where hundreds died, the Ali family took refuge in Kenya, waiting for hours in long queues for UN aid and food. It was here that Ali’s dedication to charity was cemented: “If it wasn’t for all those people helping me and my family, who knows where I’d be. For me, charity is so important. I always say, there’s so many things that I’d love to achieve in the ring, but more than that, I want to be remembered for everything that I did outside the ring.”
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
From Kenya, the arduous journey continued, taking the family to London, firstly to Paddington in temporary housing and then on to the East End, where you can now find a magnificent mural of Ali commissioned by Numbi Arts on Bethnal Green Road. Looking up into the distance, Ali’s portrait encapsulates her steely determination and quest for a positive future. “Chase Courage” is spelled out in a handwritten scrawl above the mural, reminding people of this local hero and her hunger for change.
Having been bullied at school for being overweight, Ali first slipped on a pair of boxing gloves aged 12 at her local leisure centre, where she tried a boxercise class and immediately “fell in love” with the sport. “In return I was getting healthy, losing weight and gaining more self-confidence.” After the centre closed down, she turned to her neighbourhood kickboxing gym. Since then, she has fought and won 14 Muay Thai fights.
Ali explains how most boxing careers begin as an amateur, competing on a national level before representing your country and then on to the Olympics. Post-Olympics, the hope is to turn professional and “get paid to box, basically”.
Like much of her life before, Ali’s journey into boxing was not quite so smooth. Despite winning the nationals twice and being a British citizen, she was never selected to represent England or Great Britain. Devastated, Ali was close to quitting: “You want to try and be the best possible version of yourself that you can possibly be and I remember thinking back in 2016, ‘what’s the point if I can never make it to the Olympics?’”
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
It wasn’t until a fellow athlete and friend suggested she represent Somalia did Ali find another route to boxing on the world stage. At first, she was hesitant. “People were just going to think, ‘well you could never compete for England or Great Britain, so Somalia is the next best thing’.”
But later, she became convinced that doing so would help raise awareness about the country of her birth. Having stepped up, she became the first person in history to win a gold medal for Somalia in boxing and also the first female in history to represent Somalia at the Olympics. But again, the path to the Games wasn’t easy without the financial resources of a big country backing her.
At one point, Ali and her husband and manager, Richard Moore, became almost homeless trying to fund the training and logistics that come with competing on an international level. Then in stepped the fashion industry, saving and supporting Ali’s boxing career.
From the outside, modelling and boxing couldn’t be further apart and yet the two complement one another in Ali’s life. While most of her competitors were full-time athletes, she found herself “on set for 12 hours, and then leaving to go training. I was so tired but I had to do it because when you want to achieve something so bad, you stop at nothing to do it.”
Her fashion credentials are supermodel worthy, having been hand-picked by the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, in 2019 to be shot by the late great Peter Lindbergh to grace Vogue’s famous Force For Change cover alongside Greta Thunberg, Jacinda Ardern, Sinéad Burke, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and more.
Ali is signed with IMG models and it is evident that legacy fashion houses can’t get enough of her, with Burberry, Cartier, Coach and Dior campaigns under her belt. Dior, alongside Alexander McQueen and Off-White, has also created custom looks for Ali in the ring.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Ali’s experience couldn’t be further from The Devil Wears Prada stereotype. “I once walked on to set with six fresh stitches above my left eye from a match. I thought I’d be asked to leave but everybody loved it and they embraced it, wanting to show the fact that I’m a boxer. I’ve learnt you should never judge a book by its cover. People always think that fashion is cut throat, where you have to be a size zero and six foot tall or you’ll never make it.” In short, Ali has found the industry to be a “very welcoming” space with “a lot of inclusivity”.
Ali reached dizzying fashion and personal heights at the 2022 Met Gala dressed in a jaw dropping, whimsical white Giambattista Valli gown paired with Cartier jewels and Jimmy Choo shoes. Later that night, she shared an emotional hug with tennis star Venus Williams, thanking her and sister Serena for their inspiration.
“Seeing two black women dominate a predominantly white sport and kill it … I always say representation is so important. You can’t be what you can’t see, and seeing them do it just showed me that I could possibly do it as well.”
Long before this encounter, Ali was also leading by example. After getting her coaching qualifications, she launched The Sisters Club in 2018, a charity that offers free weekly sports classes in boxing, football, running and basketball across London, New York and Florida, sharing with vulnerable women discipline, self-defence skills and the positive mental and physical effects of exercise.
One year later, her charitable and sporting pursuits merged when she became a UK ambassador for Unicef and turned professional. But it didn’t stop there – throughout that first year in the professional ring, Ali donated a quarter of her earnings to the Black Lives Matter campaign.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Ali’s boxing career also marks her out as the first female to fight in Saudi Arabia (where she knocked out her opponent in the first round in just 65 seconds) and the first female English Muslim to win an English amateur boxing title. Her fiery talent has caught the eye of world class fight promoter Eddie Hearn, who proved very understanding when she decided to take a break after her last fight in November.
The camp she trained at before then “was so emotionally draining”, to the extent that she couldn’t box or even watch her friends compete. She turned to a sports psychologist “to make sure my mental health was in check”. Thankfully by January, she was ready to return to the ring, “I found a coach here in London. His name’s Larry Ekundayo and he’s just made me fall in love with boxing again.”
While the conversation surrounding mental health and sport is on the rise, Ali reminds us to never “believe what you see on social media. People always post their wins, they never post their losses”. Today she’s “not afraid” to open up about her “tough times” because “I’m hoping me talking about it is going to help someone else. And why wouldn’t I want to do that?”.
In 2021, Ali spread her message to a new audience with her writing debut, Not Without A Fight: Ten Steps To Becoming Your Own Change, a self-help book published by Stormzy’s Merky Books and Penguin Random House charting Ali’s 10 most important fights.
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
When questioned on where she would like to see change in boxing, she points immediately to the glaring pay disparity between male and female boxers, one of the biggest in professional sport. Ali is also uncomfortable with the increase in female boxers showing “a lot more skin because they think that will bring them the fans and put more eyes on the sport”.
She agrees that if that “empowers” and “liberates” a woman then she should do it. “But I also think you that you don’t have to do that … I always say if more women supported women, we’d have a bigger audience and the more eyes that are on women competing, the more money we’d get paid.”
It seems as though the exceptional effort Ali has put into turning her life around is finally paying off. Last year, she was ranked one of Time’s 12 Women Of The Year and in just few a months’ time we shall see her back at what she does best, boxing, with a fight scheduled for announcement.
Despite Ali not receiving the support she should have had at the start of her career, it seems her destiny, mixed in with hard graft, has other ideas for her. So how does someone who has forever forged her own way in life know they are on track? “I never knew I was on the right path,” she quickly replies. “I always knew I just wanted to do something that made me happy and that’s what I ended up doing.”
In honour of Glass’ 15-year anniversary, I ask Ali what she would say to her 15-year old self, to which she responds, “Never worry about the box that people are trying to put you in because it makes them feel good. Always be true to yourself. Always go out there and try to achieve your dreams because no one can live your life for you. And make sure you live a life that’s full and that’s happy.”
by Charlie Newman
Photographer: Elliot James Kennedy
Stylist: Lewis Munro
Make up: Jessica DeBruyne
Hair: Nicola Harrowell
1st photography assistant: Madison Blair
2nd photography assistant: Matt Trapp
Stylist assistant: Ada Matylda
Talent: Ramla Ali
Look 1: LOVE necklace in 18K yellow gold, Clash de Cartier ring in 18K rose gold with onyx and diamonds, both CARTIER, Jacket PATRYCJA PAGAS, Trousers KIKO KOSTADINOV
Look 2: LOVE necklace in 18K yellow gold, Clash de Cartier ring in 18K rose gold with onyx and diamonds, both CARTIER, All clothing KIKO KOSTADINOV, Shoes DIESEL
Look 3: LOVE necklace in 18K yellow gold, Clash de Cartier ring in 18K rose gold with onyx and diamonds, both CARTIER, Jacket PATRYCJA PAGAS, Top, trousers KIKO KOSTADINOV, Shoes DIESEL
Look 4: Juste un Clou earrings in 18K yellow gold with diamonds CARTIER, Jacket ISSEY MIYAKE
Look 5: LOVE necklace in 18K yellow gold CARTIER, All clothing KIKO KOSTADINOV, Shoes DIESEL
Look 6: Clash de Cartier ring in 18K rose gold with onyx and diamonds CARTIER, Jacket TOD’S, Jacket CHOPOVA LOWENA, Shorts TOGA, Shoes GUCCI