She works as a Visual Jockey, illustrator, animator but you probably recognize her from various advertisements, because she is quite a famous model. Kristel Doest, better known as Aineko as a VJ, lives a busy life. In the past, this afro chick did everything to straighten her hair, but now she is proud of her beautiful afro haircut.
Model Kristel Doest
{loadposition links}
As a little girl, Kristel already knew exactly what she wanted to do. Make cartoons. She brought this dream from Suriname to the Netherlands, where she started studying at the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2001. After her education in Design for Virtual Theatre & Games, Kristel wanted to further expand her knowledge in the visual field and followed another education at the VJ Academy in Amsterdam. Now she is a fully-fledged VJ, which means that she provides moving images on large screens during concerts, at events, in nightclubs, and so on. A kind of DJ, only not with music but with images. “I really like drawing and modeling,” says Kristel, “but the work as a VJ scores a lot of points, because I can incorporate many disciplines and different art forms into it. For example, I take pieces from my favorite films, cartoons or video clips and mix them with my own 2D animations.” A real art form in which Kristel can put many more of her passions. “With my new VJ collective Girls Playground we combine VJing with performing, fashion and dance. This diversity and creativity suits me very well.”
As VJ Aineko, Kristel won the Golden Gnome after 4 nominations.
{loadposition links}
Natural Beauty
Her busy life does mean that she often looks for an easy hairstyle for her frizzy hair. “I prefer to wear my hair loose and sometimes I tie it up, my side-show bob hairdo,” says Kristel. “The past few months I didn’t want to do anything with my hair and I loved that bohemian style of Solange Knowles, so for Christmas I had long thin braids.” Kristel hasn’t always been happy with frizzy hair. “It’s not that I thought it was ugly or that I wasn’t proud of it, but when I was about eleven years old, I started to find my braids childish. Many dark-skinned women around me had straightened hair and it gave me the idea that it was part of growing up. With great difficulty, I managed to talk my mother into it. I walked around with straightened hair throughout high school, but when I went to college, I wanted to go natural again. Because of examples like Lauren Hill and Inda Arie, I wanted dreads again. I saw that you can also be mature, fashionable, sexy and cool without straight hair.” Kristel therefore thinks it’s a shame when women use extensions to hide their natural hair. “I don’t have any problems with extensions per se. I would prefer to have a different haircut every day and I think that with extensions you can change your haircut relatively easily and quickly. I do think it’s a shame that in the black community there is still the idea that frizzy hair is ugly. Many people were taught from childhood that the smoother the hair, the better. That has been around for generations and it will therefore take time before that old-fashioned idea disappears,” says Kristel.
Holland's Next Top Model
Kristel's beautiful curls have not gone unnoticed in the modeling world either. "I was buying Christmas presents in 2005 and someone asked me in a shoe store in Amsterdam if I would like to do modeling work. About a year later I applied for Holland's Next Top Model. I made it to the last twenty-five candidates, but not to the last twelve who were allowed to stay in the house. Still, I thought I had impressed the owner of Max Models enough, where the winner would get a contract. I sent an email with some photos, was invited for an interview and that's how I ended up at Max Models," says Kristel. Still, she never made modeling her main job. She sees it more as a hobby. “It’s not easy to work as a dark-skinned model anyway and I don’t think my frizzy hair makes it any easier. In terms of Western hairstyles, a stylist can’t do much with my hair. They want models that the public can identify with and the Dutch public doesn’t identify with dark-skinned girls with an afro. So there’s not much modelling work for me. The jobs I’ve done, I’ve gotten precisely because of my hair. You’re usually typecast; you’re the tough street chick or the funky girl. I think that’s a shame, because there are many more sides to me than that commercial side. It gives the impression that afro chicks can only be ‘urban’, while I think we can do high fashion work just as well.” 
No. 1
Such a young, beautiful, successful woman must surely have a source of inspiration. Maybe even several, to inspire her in all areas. “Big examples for me are Tyra Banks, Alex Wek, Beyonce and Oprah. Why? Because these are all women who fought very hard for everything they achieved. Alec is beautiful, but so different from the standard blonde girls on the catwalk. She must have fought very hard to conquer her place. What I appreciate about Tyra is that, through America's Next Top Model, she gives girls the chance to become top models. Even if they are not the right size, too small or colored. She shows that there is not one type of beauty. Beyonce is simply 'amazing' in what she does! And I think Oprah has educated the whole world a little with her show. I always learn something from her that makes me grow as a person and have more understanding for my fellow man. Too bad she stopped.” Besides all these greats, Kristel has the one person who inspires her the most and that is… “My mother. She is a hard worker who always wants the best for her husband and children.”
House-tree-pet
Kristel has several other goals in her life. In the fashion world, that is to get more high fashion assignments. As a VJ, she would like to get bigger assignments and she hopes that her VJ collective Girls Playground will become 'booming' in 2012 and will be in big party festivals at home and abroad. But she also has big plans in her private life. "I am a very girly-girl. In the coming years, I want to combine my house-tree-pet side with my work, because my fiancé and I want to get married and have children. For me, a happy life consists of a good balance between work and private life."
For more about Kristel you can visit her personal website: www.aineko.nl