Kenza Fourati

Fourati was born in Lille, northern France, on 13 May 1987. She moved to Tunisia with her family when she was two months old, growing up in the coastal town of La Marsa.

Fourati's mother, Dora Bouchoucha, is a film producer, and her father, Kamel Fourati, is a radiologist. Her paternal grandfather, Mohamed Fourati, was a cardiologist and a pioneer of heart transplant surgery in Tunisia. Her paternal grandmother, Michèle Roly, is French and a native of Lille. Fourati has a younger sister, Maleke, who completed a PhD in Development Economics at the UNSW Business School, in Australia.

Fourati attended a French high school in Tunisia and began modelling after graduation. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Paris, to study at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Fourati graduated with a Bachelor in Literature and Fine Arts in 2008. She then moved to London to study filmmaking at Kingston University, London where she continued modelling Fourati graduated with a master's degree in Film/Cinema/Video Studies in 2010. Fourati has said that she has wanted to become a director since she was young. She has been studying acting at the New York Film Academy since 2011.

Fourati speaks Arabic, French, English and "a little bit of Italian". She has dual French and Tunisian citizenship.In 2002, Fourati finished in third place in the Elite Model Look competition at the age of 15 and signed with Elite Model Management. She has appeared in numerous international magazines, such as Vogue Paris, Elle, Marie Claire, L'officiel Voyage, Grazia, and GQ. Fourati has walked the runway for major fashion houses, including Armani, Dior, Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Céline, Gianfranco Ferré, Stella McCartney, Tommy Hilfiger, Valentino and Vivienne Westwood.

In 2005, she appeared in the French film Frankie alongside Diane Kruger. In October 2010, with Tunisian actor Dhaffer L'Abidine, Fourati co-hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the Carthage Film Festival.

In recent years, she has been involved in advocacy with the Model Mafia and Model Alliance.

In November 2013, Fourati launched her own women's fashion line in Tunis, Tunisia. Her clothing line included a range of printed T-shirts; long, sheer dresses; and oversized, long-sleeved tops. The fashion line was designed in New York by Fourati who was assisted by a pattern-maker; and manufactured in her home country of Tunisia. The By Kenz blog is no longer available and the Facebook Fanpage has not been updated since March, 2014. She has since launched a shoe company, Osay, with Simone Carrica.