Michaela Coel Wanted to Honor Sudanese Women With Her Fashion at TIFF

When Michaela Coel headed to the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival to promote her latest film—Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers—she wanted to use her red carpet fashion to make a statement. “Sudanese women have been on the frontlines of every revolution in Sudan—2019 was even called a women’s revolution. I’m inspired by their resilience and determination, and wanted to pay tribute to them and help give their stories a platform for recognition,” Coel tells Vogue.

For the premiere, Coel donned a toub, a traditional Sudanese garment worn draped over the body and around the head. “The toub made me feel elegant and powerful,” she says. “I chose espresso because dark-skinned women face prejudice and persecution in Sudan. The color is beautiful, and this hue needs to be seen as such.”

When it came to her jewelry, she turned to Nisreen Kuku for her earrings and necklace. The necklace was inspired by West Sudanese jewelry, which Coel notes “is the epicenter of the world’s largest famine and genocide.” “These earrings are called Al Qamar Boba or Fidwa, from the word ‘fidya’—ransom or sacrifice,” she adds. “For Sudanese women, gold has always carried that meaning, not just beauty but protection. In this war, that symbolism has turned tragic. Wearing this is about honoring their sacrifice and the immense suffering Sudanese women are enduring.”

Coel also commissioned custom grills from London jewelry brand Alighieri—who only works with recycled gold—for the occasion. “I went to visit Rosh [Mahtani, the CEO] in Hatton Gardens at her shop. We spoke for hours, sometimes very poetically, about tectonic plates,  tension and creating volcanic change,” she says. “She had never [made grills] before. It took 4 hours with Rosh and the grillz technician to design them.”

Coel’s henna was also a labor of love. “It took five hours to do. The artist came to visit me two weeks ago to test the henna on my skin. On the day she came with her daughter, Sonia, a 20-year-old girl who moved from Sudan at eight years old,” Coel says. “I spoke about her journey to the UK, being dark skinned, and the different facets of colorism that she has faced both in Sudan and in the UK. We cried, we laughed, we ate sambosa that her mum made.”

Every last detail of Coel’s look was highly considered. She credits Ebaa Elmelik, co-founder of Media for Justice in Sudan, with helping her bring it all together. “I told her I wanted to wear a Sudanese toub, and she helped connect me,” she says. “She also introduced me to the henna artist as well as the jewelry designer, Nisreen.”

Here, Michaela Coel takes Vogue behind the scenes as she gets ready for the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.