While the baby albums of most people teem with pizza parties and petting zoos, eyes reddened by the unruly flash of disposable cameras, mixed into Suhul and Raee Kebede’s family photos are portraits by Annie Leibovitz and Arthur Elgort. For as long as their mother, Liya Kebede, has been working, her son and daughter (now 23 and 18) have also been in the picture, literally or otherwise: Liya was already expecting Suhul during her breakout season as a model, when Tom Ford sent her slinking down Gucci’s fall 2000 runway in Milan; she was a few months pregnant with Raee on Vogue’s May 2005 cover, shot by Steven Meisel; and when she launched Lemlem, her line of sustainable resortwear, in 2007, it was all children’s clothes.
Nevertheless, Liya still never quite knows where to train her attention when she’s on set with her kids. “I’m caught between being a mom and trying to model,” she says with a laugh. “It is very confusing.” And it’s a problem that she seems to be encountering more and more: Last year, Liya did Wales Bonner’s fall 2023 show with Raee in January and Louis Vuitton’s spring 2024 men’s show with Suhul in June. “It’s amazing to see your kids in your space, but holding their own space,” she says.
Indeed, for all their childhood bona fides, both Suhul and Raee have maintained a healthy distance from the glamorous thrall of their mom’s world. While Suhul, who studied mechanical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, now works in data analysis near Philadelphia—playing soccer and exploring the local arts scene in his downtime—Raee loves fashion, yes, but also dance and music and film. (The Wales Bonner experience actually reminded her a bit of a recital: “The getting ready and the rehearsals—it’s all stuff that I normally do for my dance shows,” she explains.)
At 46, Liya now divides her time between New York, where Raee is finishing her senior year at the Dalton School; Europe, where much of her work and social life is based; and Ethiopia, for visits with her own mother. (Liya and Kassy Kebede, Suhul and Raee’s father, divorced about a decade ago.) The tempo of life in Paris suits her, especially these days: “When you’re in your 20s and 30s, New York is a great place because the energy just carries you through everything,” she says. “Now, I kind of want to have a different pace, a different rhythm, and I feel like in Europe, they’re better at managing and balancing the work and play and family and your own time.”
It was, in fact, Liya’s desire to make more time for reading that inspired Liyabrairie, her latest project. Determined to have a book with her at all times after she reemerged from lockdown—R.F. Kuang’s Babel, Umberto Eco’s Chronicles of a Liquid Society, and a volume of Mary Oliver’s poetry are in rotation at the moment—she was soon selling chic adjustable book straps made from Italian calfskin leather, along with organic cotton hoodies emblazoned with the names of her favorite authors: Baldwin, Angelou, Lorde, Morrison, Baudelaire. Collaborations with Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche and the upscale coffee brand Momus would follow.
“It’s really something that’s not very serious—for now,” she says of Liyabrairie. And while Liya had enough on her plate before beginning another business, at this point in her life, given her kids’ ever-growing independence, she is setting her own agenda and deciding what feels good on the fly. “It’s fun,” she says.
In this story: hair, Jawara; makeup, Fara Homidi; Menswear Editor, Michael Philouze; produced by Tann Services; set design, Julia Wagner.