Posts by Rachel

Late last month, as all eyes were on the last AW11 fashion weeks, the world was shocked by allegations of John Galliano, Creative Director for Dior, hurling ant-semitic abuse at a couple in La Perle, Paris. Galliano was arrested, and Dior subsequently suspended him. At time of writing, Galliano is protesting his innocence, but there’s a video now surfacing of further allegations, all based around similar anti-semitic abuse. It was truly shocking, and made me consider the fashion world’s general outlook at other races/cultures, and if it is truly as all-inclusive as it should be.

My gut reaction is that while fashion isn’t overly racist or flamboyantly prejudiced, it is still an industry with predominantly caucasian ideals of beauty. While you can say that there are many ethnically diverse designers all contributing to multiculturalism within fashion, the ‘face’ of the industry, as it were, is the model, and she is still nearly always white. Galliano’s comments were directed at a religion rather than a skin colour, but it hints at a darker side of the industry, which can still be extremely prejudiced.

‘Right now everyone is scared – they think, if I take that risk, will she sell my products? So they go with the tried-and-tested white girls’ says Carole White, Premier Model’s founder, whom Channel 4 have been following round for their new fly-on-the-wall series, The Model Agency. Naomi Campbell herself agrees; she commented on the all-black edition of Vogue Italia; “That issue made some noise, but, unfortunately, we are the same as before. People, in the panic of the recession, don’t dare to put a girl of color in their campaign, full stop. Nor of any other race. It’s a shame. It’s very sad.” Annie Wilshaw, a model booker, goes further, addressing the stereotypes that can occur when black girls are cast: “When the client sends you a brief you know straight away they’re not talking about a black girl. They say they want ‘a girl with long hair, who looks like a fairy’ or something. When they want a black girl, they will say ‘looking for mixed-race girl, tribal-prints location, desert scene’” And I tend to agree.

It’s not that black or mixed race girls are never seen in fashion, but when they are, it has the feeling of making a statement, like the edgy, dark, rocky vibe in Burberry’s new S/S campaign featuring only Jourdan Dunn and a black male model. Editorials tend to be the ’strong, ethnic woman’, facing some form of vague unquantifiable diversity in the distance, whether in a desert or a jungle or looking tough on a street. However, on the other side of the argument, when black models are cast as ‘just another model’ in a group shot, and their skin colour is not the focus or theme of the image, there are gasps that they are being shoved in the background. The blog Fashion Bomb Daily comments on Chanel Iman’s recent appearance in a Dsquared2 ad: ‘I really had to squint my eyes to find her. She was almost unrecognizable, stuck in the back, and looked super pasty and almost colorless…why use a model of colour if you can’t tell she has any?”

There is a sense that there are too many extremes going on. Either featuring ethnic models to make a point (artistic or otherwise), or shoving them in the background, lightening their skin colour, or just not casting them at all. There was uproar over Vanity Fair – and later L’oreal – apparently lightening Beyoncé’s skin tone on the cover and in the ads respectively. Is this because society itself still seems to accept that to be beautiful is not black? Or at least, not very dark? We don’t live in a perfect society; there unfortunately is, and probably always will be, some forms of racism; Galliano is a prime example that people still hold prejudices which most of us cannot fathom. Is it that fashion is an age behind the rest of society; or does it just hold up a mirror and reflect a more concentrated form of that society?

So what about Naomi Campbell, then? Tyra Banks? Jourdan Dunn? Well, yes. But these are supermodels, exceptions in that they’ve made it to the top of their game. We forget that there are hundreds, thousands of ‘ordinary’ black, mixed race models vying for campaigns, with brands that are frightened to take ‘risks.’ There is a Facebook campaign called Black But Invisible where the Mahogany Models agency is campaigning to get more black models in the mainstream. Annie Wilshaw spoke to the Guardian recently on Leomie Anderson, an up and coming black model. “I explained to Leomie when we took her on that she won’t get the options as easily as the white girls, because it’s true, it’s so much harder to develop the black girls. She has to work twice as hard to get picked up on.”

But how can this change, if the industry itself does nothing to change these perceptions? I don’t have that answer. But I’ll leave you with a quote from Nick Knight, founder and director of ShowStudio, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Share on Facebook