Jourdan Dunn - Observer Magazine

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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.

King James Covers Vogue's "Sh-ape" Issue

You know what? I don't even know if I have the energy to go there with this jacked up cover so I'm only going to make two points.

First, why does Anna Wintour have such a hard nipples for black folks with their mouths hanging wide open on her magazine? Specifically, I'm thinking about Jennifer Hudson's horribly unflattering cover last year.

Second, the first image that came into my mind when I saw Lebron's contorted expression and Gisele (in Calvin Klein) looking like a windswept maiden was this one:

That is all. I'm think I'm going to have to lay down now.

Ajuma The Conquered

Last season Vivienne Westwood raised a few eyebrows when she publicly lambasted fashion editors, calling them racist for refusing to use black models on their pages. Westwood even went as far as to call for an affirmative action of sorts, to force editors to use a certain percentage of black models. Later, she also spoke of her upcoming ads which would feature the beautiful Kenyan model Ajuma Nasenyana, no stranger to Westwood's runway, as the face of the Spring campaign.

I was impressed with Westwood's willingness to speak so openly about what we've all been decrying for years and looked forward to seeing the new ads with Ajuma (who I think is one of the most stunning models to emerge in the last few years.) In my view, the grande dame could have just as easily said nothing, accepted the status quo, and had another cup of tea.

Well, low and behold, the ads have finally made their way into fashion magazines and sadly, I am not impressed. Westwood's ads are usually on the fringe but seeing Ajuma posing with a spear and gun in a series of ads that also includes African masks, animal corpses and even bananas is crossed the line from provocative to stereotypical and wholly unnecessary.

Is it a political message? I don't know. Shot by Juergen Teller, they are certainly eye-catching. Nasenyana's dark shiny skin absorbs ever bit of the stark white background. In one, Ajuma wears a yellow and green dress reminiscent of the plumage of an exotic bird while holding a machine gun. In spite of the dress, Ajuma, with her closely cropped hair and somewhat androgynous appearance, could easily be mistaken for a young boy, or more aptly, a child soldier, much like the ones who are all too often shown on the evening news or in documentaries on Africa's war torn regions. Is this 'empowerment' or is Westwood alluding to the 'force' she wants used to put models like Ajuma on the pages of Vogue and Elle?

Another image show Ajuma standing behind an armchair, casually holding the hand of a casually seated white male model who is also holding a gun while yet another has her alone, holding a spear.

Maybe it's just my own irritation at this subject but I can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if say Gisele or Kate Moss were photographed in this 'safari chic' manner nearly every time they appeared in an ad or editorial. Or better yet, as cavewomen? Wouldn't it be promptly dismissed as tiresome or unoriginal? I have honestly seen Ajuma, and other black models, used in this exploitative manner dozens and dozens of times.

Where fashion used to be a fun past-time for me, it has now become repetitive and tiresome.

I've posted before about the refusal of some fashion photographers to view black female models as anything but an exotic other, to be dressed up in feathers or pelts to exploit their racial origins. To see this trend continued into yet another decade is troubling. Haven't we made any progress?

As for Dame Westwood, to her I would say that although I appreciate her support of the struggle, maybe next time she should just send a check.

Photo source: BerlinRocks!/TFS

Trio of Articles from The Independent on Discrimination Against Non-White Models

Up and coming model Jourdan Dunn has been called the "New Naomi"

'Fashion is racist: insider lifts lid on 'ethnic exclusion'

..."Sadly we are in the business where you stock your shelves with what sells," she said.

"According to the magazines, black models don't sell," White continued. "People don't tend to talk about it, but black models have to be so beautiful and perfect because we can't have a lot of diversity with black models; it's harder work for the agency because there's not so much on offer. White models can have more diversity."

Ms White pointed the finger at those organising model castings, adding: "We have had casting briefs which say 'no ethnics'. But we are better in London than Paris and Milan; there if you offer a black girl they will drop the book like it's hot; it's such hard work for the bookers."


'Why should catwalks be so white?'

"London is not a white city, so why should our catwalks be so white?" said the teenager. "I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around and there is just me and maybe one other coloured face. They just don't get picked. I hope it's because the designer just did not think they were good enough as a model, but I don't know."


'Models often too afraid to launch a claim'

An industry so skewed towards non-ethnic minority workers is highly vulnerable to race discrimination claims. It may only take one high-profile case to trigger a torrent of race claims. The employment tribunals will then be able to set new parameters and fairer rules of employment.

The question is who will be brave enough to go first.

Thanks to Scriptgirl for the articles!

WSJ: "Crossing Fashion's Thin White Line"

Fashion Week is up and running again and after all the criticism last Fall about the lack of models of color on the runway there does seem to be some improvement this go round with the leggy likes of Jourdan Dunn, Mimi Roche, and Yordanos on the catwalk doing what models do best walk.

Did the world stop spinning? Did buyers stop buying? I don't think so. Nordstrom and Neiman's will still buy the clothes that they think will sell regardless of who is wearing them on the runway. Is anyone asking for quotas? No. Many just want models of color to be sent on the same go-sees that unknown European models are sent to everyday.

The Wall Street Journal shed some more light on the issue recently:

Just who is responsible for diversity on the runway depends on whom you ask. Casting directors say they work for the designers, so if the designers decide ethnic models don't fit their aesthetic, they don't hire them. Designers gripe that they would use more minority models, but the agencies don't send any "good" ones. And the modeling agencies say they aren't scouting and developing many minority models because the market hasn't been demanding their services.

A designer's goal with an expensive fashion show is to keep attention on his or her clothes, not the models. That's why, many designers privately explain, they don't like to hire distinctive-looking models, either ethnically or otherwise. But the public concern has put so much pressure on the industry that some say they have to change.

"The tricky thing about this business is that [designers and casting directors] can always say it's a matter of personal and aesthetic freedom," says Roman Young, an agent at Elite Model Management. "You wonder, 'Are they racist or are they just dumb?'" Mr. Young says he hasn't been aggressively scouting models of color because, until now, designers haven't demanded them. Very young, newly scouted models are highly in demand every season since the market likes fresh, unknown faces.

...As for whether the industry will ever change, Ms. Venditti says it's all about whether racial diversity becomes the latest fashion trend. "In general, [the industry] is a bunch of followers," she says. But "the conversation has started."

Brazilian Models Protest Exclusion from Fashion Shows

About 20 Black fashion models in Rio protested outside of Oi (a major sponsor of the event) recently to demonstrate against what they felt was the exclusionary casting of runway shows for Fashion Rio. They claim that Black models were not given the opportunity to audition for many of the shows. Apparently only three Black models (all male) were cast for the event.

I've always been fascinated by racial politics in Brazil; how on the surface the country represents itself as a racial utopia when in practice the racial bias there is so clearly evident.

UPDATE: Youtube video of BBC newcast on the protest. One source in the video claims that in a country where 50% of the population is Black or mixed race, only 2% are Black. Many designers insist that no one is excluded and one insinuated when confronted with the complaints of black models that perhaps the models weren't cast because they were not 'good' or 'tall' or 'beautiful enough.'

BBC article: Race row over Brazil Fashion Week


Source: ErikaPalomino.com

The Independent: Agencies to Blame for Discrimination in Modelling

Fashion industry insiders have criticised modelling agencies for encouraging a culture of "blatant racism" in the business and announced an emergency summit with race campaigners and politicians to try to tackle the issue.

The meeting, scheduled to take place in London next year, has been organised by Dee Doocey (pictured), a Liberal Democrat spokesperson from the London Assembly. Ms Doocey, a former managing director of an international fashion company, believes the fashion world desperately needs to face underlying racism in the trade.

"I can't remember being sent a model who wasn't white," said the former fashion manager. "I don't know if it's racism, or just the fashion industry languishing in the doldrums, but it needs to change. Agencies only seem interested in leggy white blonde girls."

Designers, model agencies, race campaigners and politicians are among those who will be invited to the event, which has been announced ahead of a national contest in November to find the next British supermodel "of colour".

Sola Oyebade, managing director of Mahogany, the model agency behind next month's Top Model of Colour competition, said: "This event will start the debate. We've been trying to get more ethnic minority models into the industry but if you don't hold the purse strings or the power then no change can happen. Everyone looks at Naomi Campbell as the black model who's made it, but ...isn't it worrying that no-one else has come along?

"There are so many good quality black and mixed race-models that would be great, but the agencies and the clients are not willing to take a gamble.

"Non-white people make up about 30 per cent of the population of London but we don't even make up 1 per cent of the models."

Cassandra Lee, 18, a finalist in the Top Model of Colour competition, said her skin colour had been a problem for her in getting work. "You have to try much harder if you're not white," she said. "You have to be perfect to be looked at the same way as a white model. Sometimes you hear straight up that they're not looking for black models. It's quite blatant. " Another finalist, Stacey McKnight, 21, said it was ridiculous that black models were overlooked. "We're British too, why aren't we represented?"

One third of all Londoners are non-white, according to Greater London Assembly statistics, yet the websites of London's leading agencies show there are hundreds of white faces for every handful of models from other ethnic groups.

Maya Schulz, managing director at Acclaim models, an agency that specialises in choosing models from an ethnically diverse range of backgrounds, said: "I always find it more difficult putting black faces out there. The racism you come across is not underlying, it's blatant. People will say things like 'Don't send any more black models', and one designer even said black people didn't suit his clothes. And we're not talking about small designers here; it's all the big ones."

"The colour debate is far more important than the size-zero debate, but it's hardly had any coverage. The Black Girls Coalition was formed in the Eighties to combat it, but no progress has been made."

Source

Little Diversity in Fashion: African-Americans Bemoan Their Absence in Industry

Excerpts from WWD

...By not including more blacks in their shows and ads, Ivan Bart, senior vice president of IMG Models, said designers and other fashion companies are missing out on black women's spending power. "By not having black women represented, those luxury brands are saying they can't afford it," he said.

...[Bethann] Hardison, who has modeled, run her own modeling agency and handled casting over the years, said, "In the United States of America, this is the one industry that still has the freedom to refer to people by their color and reject them in their work."

...Daniel Wolf, a Washington-based attorney who specializes in civil and human rights, said the assumption being made in the fashion industry is that it is legal to discriminate — however false. Wolf recommended that modeling agencies hire the same percentage of black models that are in the entire modeling industry.

...The lack of blacks in all aspects of fashion — from the runway to the executive suite — comes as there is a noticeable increase in the number of Asian models, designers and executives in the industry. Among designers, for example, Thakoon Panichgul, Peter Som, Doo-Ri Chung, Derek Lam, Phillip Lim, and Benjamin Cho have all sprung onto the scene. Of course, designers like Vera Wang, Yeohlee Teng, Anna Sui and Vivienne Tam had already helped pave the way.

...Of the 101 shows and presentations posted on Style.com, 31 appear to have no black models. Most of those who did use black models opted for one or two. However, Heatherette, Diane von Furstenberg, Charles Nolan, Tracy Reese, Yigal Azrouël, Philip Lim, Marc Jacobs, Jenni Kayne and Sue Stemp were among the designers who used more than two.

...[Naomi] Campbell, who flew in from London for the occasion, recalled how Christy Turlington once told Dolce & Gabbana, "If you don't use Naomi, you don't get us," referring also to Linda Evangelista. Campbell said that's how she also got into Helmut Lang, Prada and Versace. She used a different route with French Vogue, appealing to Yves Saint Laurent, whose campaigns she had worked on for three years running. The magazine relented after the designer threatened to pull his advertising, which at the time was reportedly the publication's largest advertiser.


...Bill Blass' former designer, Michael Vollbracht, recalled the days when booking Sheila Johnson, Pat Cleveland and other leading African-American beauties was a given. After returning to the industry after a 15-year hiatus, he was surprised to learn that was no longer the case. Age is also an issue, Vollbracht said. Cleveland's return to the Blass runway in 2004 was not well-received, Vollbracht said. "I was told, 'Don't ever put that girl back on the runway.'"

...On occasion [Tracy] Reese's booker has to request specific girls or the modeling agencies will not send them, Reese said.


Most of this, we've all read before so I won't bother to rehash my thought on the subject. The most striking thing about this article to me is that someone would actually complain about watching Pat Cleveland on the runway. Talk about a jaw dropping comment. To be fair, I know that everyone has their favorites in the modeling industry but... damn. That would be like me writing a pissy letter to Anna Wintour every time I saw Kate Moss or Gisele appearing in an advertisement. Personally, I'd pay money to watch Cleveland walk across the street.

The Other Great White Way

Kenya Hunt, writing for Metro New York is the latest to voice criticism about the step backwards that many fashion houses have taken diversity-wise when it comes to casting models for shows.

"...the odds of an ethnic model making inroads into the runway realm growing increasingly dismal with time. “The runway doesn’t reflect the world. It makes fashion feel very backward,” notes Guy Trebay, a fashion reporter for The New York Times, who has written extensively about the subject. The dearth of minorities on the catwalk is a decades-long quandary. But many who work behind-the-scenes say the problem has worsened rather than improved, with groups of minority women unable to get jobs based on the whims that dictate what’s out and what’s in."

Of course, designers and agencies have a million and one excuses for the lack of color on the runway this season with some claiming erroneously that black and brown models don't "fit" their clothes or that they stand out too much, while others cite the imaginary lack of models of color. In my opinion both of these excuses are ridiculous. What it brings to my mind is an episode of Janice Dickinson's modeling industry "reality" show in which she chided a male agent for not championing models that he personally didn't find f*ckable (meaning blond and white.) It seems kind of ridiculous in this day and age to compare models of color to Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" but honestly, what other conclusion is the casual observer of fashion supposed to come to? Fashion designers and agencies don't "see" ethnic models because they don't have to. It really saddens me that that there were more ethnic models working when I was in junior high than there are visible today.

What is the ultimate effect of all this anyway? For me personally, it means that I don't buy a quarter of the fashion magazines that I regularly purchased ten years ago. While I still love clothes, my excitement about the industry as a whole has dampened considerably.

Alek Wek Opens Up About Exploitation in Modeling

Wek recounts the event in her soon to be published autobiography.

The calendar in question was made for Lavazza Italian coffee and showed the beauty against a giant coffee cup. Her flawless dark brown skin was to represent espresso. According to Fashion First, although she thought the images were beautiful she was uncomfortable with the manner in which her image was exploited. She says:

I can't help but compare them to all the images of black people that have been used in marketing over the decades. There was the big-lipped jungle-dweller on the blackamoor ceramic mugs sold in the Forties; the golliwog badges given away with jam; Little Black Sambo, who decorated the walls of an American restaurant chain in the 1960s; and Uncle Ben, whose apparently benign image still sells rice...

When asked by Vogue, the company CEO Ennio Ranaboldo defends the image which he saw artistic.

I think she raises a really interesting point. I remember when I first started seeing Alek in magazines. If my memories are correct, she was usually photographed alone and with rather exotic treatments. Never cast as straight forward beauty, she was usually regarded as some "exotic other." In fashion speak, this meant lots of feathers, body paint, sand, and usually a animal skin or two thrown in for good measure. When she finally appeared on the cover of Elle, I nearly fainted from delight.

Of course, the entire modeling industry is about exploitation but at the same time, I always hated reading mini-bios on Wek that made it sound like she tanning goat hides when the fashion world "discovered" her and put her on display. Iman got the same treatment when she first emerged. I actually remember someone telling me in all seriousness, that Iman was discovered while riding on the back of a giraffe in Africa (never mind which country.)

I'm interested to see what the response (if any) will be from the fashion industry with both Alek and Naomi's recent comments entering the blogosphere. Something tells me it will be business as usual, but I am pleased to see more people speaking out about these issues.

Naomi Speaks Out About Discrimination in Modeling Industry

Supermodel Naomi Campbell has lambasted top fashion magazines for avoiding black models in favour of fair-skinned beauties.

The London-born supermodel targeted Vogue in particular for its almost exclusive use of pale-skinned models.

"Black models are being sidelined by the major modelling agencies," Campbell said in an interview reported in The Times.

"It is a pity that people don't appreciate black beauty."

The 37 year old plans to set up a new modelling program in Kenya in an effort to bring greater balance and diversity to glossy magazines.

Campbell is a regular visitor to the Kenyan coast, where her former boyfriend Flavio Briatore owns a hotel.

She has reportedly been impressed by local beauties and sees a market for African faces on the world stage.

Cambell first appeared on the cover of Vogue in 1987 when she was 17 years old — and was one of the first to gain the tag 'supermodel'.

It has been more than five years since she graced the magazine's cover, and she now believes Vogue is reluctant to use black models.

"Even myself, I get a raw deal from my own country in England," she said during interviews at Briatore’s hotel.

"Only white models, some of whom are not as prominent as I am, are put on splash pages.

"I don't want to quit modelling until I find that black models get equal prominence and recognition by the world media and information instruments."

She's not saying anything that the rest of us haven't been complaining about for years but I'm glad she's speaking out. It's sad that there were more Black high-profile models working 15 years ago than there are now.

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