Pretty and Pregnant Jourdan Dunn

s: Vogue UK website

Wearing Dolce & Gabbana Resort Collection at a Topshop event in London. What is she? Seven months along by now? Her face has filled in beautifully.

i-D September 2009 : Arlenis, Chanel, Jourdan, Sessilee by Emma Summerton

s: TFS

I love this cover and wonder if this was the shoot Chanel Iman twittered about awhile back. They look like Robert Palmer girls sans instruments.

What struck me about the image at first was that their skin wasn't bleached out with lighting effects. I think the bright makeup and background color are all the contrast that was needed.

What say you?

Jourdan Dunn - Mom to Be

Vogue.com broke the news on their site with an article filled with suggestions on what the 19 year old supermodel in the making should wear in the coming months. Dunn is reportedly due to have a son in December which means that we probably won't see much of her during Fashion Week this fall.

Reaction to Dunn's pregnancy seemed overly judgmental on message boards this morning with some people expressing "disappointment" that the teenager (who is also a legal adult with a steady income) is pregnant.

For the record, lots of models start families very young. I hope that after the birth of her son Jourdan's career will continue to flourish, like supermodel Natalia Vodianova, who also gave birth to a child at age 19 with much less finger wagging.

Jourdan Dunn Shooting Ads for Maybelline

This pic I found via TFS, taken from Jourdan's Twitter. It's a behind the scenes photo from the ads she is doing for drugstore cosmetics giant Maybelline. I have no idea what the timeline is or when we'll start seeing the work but good for her, hopefully she'll be more center stage than some other black models Maybelline uses for its print work and commercial ads.

Jourdan Dunn for Calvin Klein

s: á la Balenciaga/TFS

On the surface, this ad reminds me of a slightly less violent version of the DSquared2 ads that Naomi Campbell did with Linda Evangelista earlier this year. Instead of actively fighting, the girls kinds of look like zombies trying to waltz. That said, this is a really big step for Jourdan's career and I applaud it. I think her particular look fits CK's aesthetic perfectly. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the ads.

Jourdan Dunn in Yves Saint Laurent Fragrance Ad

s: models.com

With actor Vincent Cassel.
La Nuit de L'Homme Fragrance S/S 09

Jourdan Dunn - Italian Vogue - "The Now Smash of Style"

Photographed by Craig McDean for 5/2009 Italian Vogue.

I love these. It's not very often that black models get photographed in such an avant-garde style. It's a nice break from the jumping and laughing type shoot that one finds month after month in American Vogue.

á la Balenciaga (a reader at The Fashion Spot) dreamed up this imaginary cover featuring the best photo from the editorial:



I'm biased but I do like it much better than the actual May cover:



What do you think?

s: Diciassette(17),BLACKLAB,TFS

Model Face-Off: Arlenis vs. Jourdan in Alberta Ferretti

s: Marpessa

Arlenis Sosa donned the same Alberta Ferretti look that Jourdan wore on the runway last night at the Met Gala. Which model sold the look?

Round 2: Jourdan vs. Oluchi in Oscar de la Renta

Vogue All Model Cover - Jourdan Dunn and Liya Kebede

source: TFS/Luxx

Shot by Steven Meisel. I'd read that Liya and Jourdan would be on the cover of this issue so I guessed that one of them would be on the cover while the other would be on the fold-out. That makes three issues in a row that Vogue has featured a black face on the cover of the magazine, which I never thought would have happened even a year ago. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a "Weekend at Bernie's" situation going on between at Condé Nast and ALT is really calling the shots these days. I don't like how pasted together all the heads look on this cover but Liya and Jourdan look beautiful.

Inside there is an article called "Sam's Club" on makeup artist Sam Fine with an accompanying editorial featuring Liya Kebede, Chanel Iman and Arlenis got snapped for the "Meet the Boyfriends" spread, while "Kicking It" and "The Godfather" spreads features Naomi Campbell among others.

I'm looking forward to getting this one in the mail. Your thoughts?

ETA: More photos

i-D Magazine - March 2009 - Multiple Covers (Jourdan & Naomi)

i-D Magazine March 2009 : "The Best Of British" photographed by Sølve Sundsbø

Is it just me or does Jourdan look like she just got hit in the eye? The winking thing doesn't seem to work out as well unless the eye is partially obscured, the wink is exaggerated or the head is turned slightly.

I do love Naomi's cover hair.

S: The Fashion Spot

Liya Kebede & Jourdan Dunn - Vogue - Feb. 2009

"It's a Madcap World" - Photographed by Steven Meisel

Sorry for the small images (I'll try to remember to replace them whenever I get the new issue in the mail.)

source: Sansartifice

Jourdan Dunn - ELLE France - December 2008

Source: Beauty Confessional

Chanel and Jourdan in January 2009 Vogue

Most of you have probably seen this spread already but I felt like posting them anyway. I know some of your are tired of seeing black modeldom's chosen ones in fashion magazine but I like the editorial and think both women look great. Chanel shows a bit more range of facial expression and Jourdan's mature gaze suggests that she's been doing this for ages even though her career only really began a year ago.

As far as American Vogue shoots go, this one is pretty typical. Lots of shots of surprised looking models levitating against gray backdrops and segregated by race. While it does stand out that this is the longest editorial featuring black models that I can recall seeing in eons, Vogue's placing it in the "Change! Yes You Can" issue immediately after a feature on The Obamas is a bit heavy handed in my opinion. If Anna Wintour and Co. had just thought to perforate theses pages they could have billed it as a special "black" pull-out section on the cover.

More photos at Studio Audience

Backstage at Bottega Veneta Spring/Summer 2009

S: Style.it

Jourdan Dunn - i-D Magazine September 2008

Jourdan Dunn seems to have benefitted the most so far from the exposure in the July Vogue Italia. Here she is once again photographed wearing Naomi's old hair style by Emma Summerton (who also photographed Dunn for the August issue of Vogue Italia and for a Topshop campaign.) Alek Wek is also featured inside photographed by Simon Harris for a spread called "If They Only Knew She Had the Power."

S: Helmut.Newton/TFS

Jourdan Dunn - Fashion Rocks 2008 - "Heart of Darkness"

 

I know, I know, it's like Jourdan Dunn Day up in here but the weird teenage black girl who still lives inside of me loves this photo of her. Not an animal print, spear or elephant in sight.

S: Faith Akiyama

"The Now Ease" Vogue Italia - August 2008

Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani made good on her promise to continue using black models in the magazine. This month's issue features an editorial titled "Fun and Chic" featuring a photo of Chanel Iman with various other models while Jourdan Dunn gets an all too brief editorial alongside male model Josh Beech. I must say that I really like Jourdan's editorial (shot by Emma Summerton.)  It's got a real melancholy vibe to it that goes well with the black and white shots. I just wish it was longer. 

S: FraItaly/TFS

POP Magazine Fall/Winter 2008 Covers

The newest issue of POP Magazine looks like it's taking cues from last month's wildly successful issue of Italian Vogue. The Fall/Winter issue will feature six cover models including Jourdan Dunn, Oluchi, and of course Naomi Campbell.

Source: TFS/Myspace

Times Online: Jourdan Dunn is the colour of money

Source: Jonas Bresnan

This rambling piece about Jourdan Dunn and the problem of racial discrimination in the fashion industry doesn't really add anything new to the discussion. There is still the same three lines about black models not selling well, their various looks not being "in" at the moment and the usual finger pointing. It paints Ms. Dunn as the great black hope of fashion and notes that all the ink about racism in fashion has added up to more work for the young model. Here are some select quotes from what is presented.

The fashion industry is racist:

These days, ethnic beauty is pretty much invisible.

The fashion world, on this evidence, has been screening out ethnic beauty.

Black faces don't sell magazines:

Editors and managers say that, however much they want to use ethnic girls, putting one on the cover of a glossy magazine will depress sales. If ethnic women brought in big profits, nobody in the industry would be in the slightest bit interested in their skin tones or their racial type. Rightly or wrongly, though women from ethnic minorities are considered a bad commercial bet.

It wasn't always like this:

In the 1960s and 1970s, ethnic women were much more visible in fashion. That was a time of exuberance and change; the time of the Black Power movement, the mantra “black is beautiful”, Roberta Flack singing Be Real Black for Me. This mood continued into the 1980s, with models such as Iman, Pat Cleveland and the young Campbell splashed everywhere.

The gay white puppet masters of the runway like women who look like smooth boys:

One suggestion is that the absence, particularly of black girls with African features, has to do with the tiny minority of people who make the fashion weather: the arbiters of fashion. These are the top casting agents and designers who decide whom to send on photoshoots and the catwalks, and many of them are gay white men. I’m told they really don’t like black women. Again, the question is, why? Or, rather, why not? As ever, if it’s not something to do with money, it is probably something to do with sex.

The sexually immature look is hot right now:

The ideal of female beauty in the fashion industry today is childlike, almost bordering on paedophilia. With few exceptions, the most sought-after faces have small, childish features, with little noses, little chins, small mouths and big, little-girl foreheads and eyes. They are childishly asexual. The same goes for fashionable bodies. The hottest bodies are almost always immature, lacking in secondary sexual characteristics – no curves, no breasts, no body hair.

Black models have the wrong type of body for fashion:

Asian girls, with their uncurvy, boyish figures and neat features often fit easily into this mould, but models with pronounced African features – large, full lips, wide noses and different facial proportions, as well as more curves, bigger bottoms and fuller breasts – do not.

Black women are too naturally sexual for fashion:

Several people have suggested to me that the gay arbiters of fashion find full-on female sexuality distasteful, which is why they don’t favour this kind of womanly beauty among white girls, either.

The new class of super-rich people also hate to look at black people:

...marketing aimed at the new mega-rich consumers in China and Russia cannot afford to ignore the fact that those countries are more racist than the west.

Black people don't like looking at black people either:

There is also evidence that ethnic women have been ambivalent about their own kind of look for many years. For decades, women with dark skin the world over have tried to make their skin paler or their hair straighter, sometimes with dangerous chemicals...

There are, of course, issues of status and power tied up in all this. Most dark-skinned people have been colonised or overrun by pale-skinned people. Pale, in folk memory, means power and wealth, and this has been deeply internalised. Perhaps this is partly why there is some resistance among black and other ethnic women themselves to dark-skinned beauty, even now; perhaps they themselves find something else more aspirational.

*****

Nice diagnosis at the end huh? I've got to stop reading this stuff. These articles all say the same thing and there's never any solution presented. It really does surprise me that there seems to be zero interest among influential black folk in the media to really invest in publishing a high quality fashion magazine aimed at Black women. I'd rather see that that yet another rapper or r&b diva's tacky ass clothing line. My eyes...they hurt from the non-stop rolling.

Jourdan Dunn - Observer Magazine

Scan uploaded by decadent_chains/ONTD

From the article:

...Dunn is a fashion star, but first and foremost she's a teenager, and a very smart one. She's articulate and observant not only about her own history but about the fashion industry. At London Fashion Week in February, her comments about race made the news. 'London is not a white city,' she told the press, 'So why should our catwalks be so white?'

Race replaced weight as the story of Fashion Week and anonymous 'fashion insiders' opined that the industry had to bow to customers who apparently demand white, thin, blonde, models. "The way people said I was stupid...saying that fashion is just a business so they need to use models who sell things....I don't see change. It needs to be said because I think about these things and other girls do too."

It warms my cold cold heart to read quotes like this from such a young woman, especially one caught up in an industry like this one. It's commendable that she thought enough about the current state of race and the fashion industry to speak on her thoughts and then not shy away once it became media fodder. She and Chanel Iman are probably working more than any of the other new Black faces in the industry and I think I would have been a lot easier for her to cash her checks and say nothing.