If you've been following my blog posts about the need for diversity in the fashion world, you'll know that it's time for the third and final part of the series (and those of you who've not seen part 1 and part 2 can quickly catch up!). Now it's time for some more analysis, with help from Jezebel.com, Sola Oyebade of Mahogany Model Management, and academic Carol Tulloch.
Models on the catwalk, and how this
is inextricably linked to editorial content
It is also vital to
consider the impact of catwalk shows on editorial content, because models that
are frequently booked for the catwalk will also be used heavily in magazines,
particularly those crowned ‘the next big thing’. Fashion shows are a great place
to analyse the industry’s attitude to racial inclusion, especially as the
designers themselves decide who will walk and who has the right look of the
season. It is therefore unsurprising, in light of what I have previously
discussed, that few designers actively support racial minorities on their
catwalks and most are reluctant to discuss why this should be the case.
The website Jezebel has
painstakingly analysed New York Fashion Week’s models in terms of ethnic origin
and has written profusely on the findings. It transpires that non-white
visibility has always been incredibly low and makes only small increases each
season. By looking at the diagrams for the Spring/Summer 2011 shows provided by
Jezebel, as seen below, it is easy to analyse the scale of the problem in the
modelling industry.
As the image depicts,
Spring/Summer 2011 was still a heavily Caucasian affair, with 81.8% of show
models belonging to that racial category. Catwalk reports revealed that many
shows shared the same non-white models, so their figure of 18.2% could be even
worse than previously suspected as the number of non-white models hired will
not be as great as 18.2% in total. The accompanying graphic proves to us that
the use of non-white models is not improving year by year, as the media would
often like us to believe, and indeed it seems to fluctuate. Obviously with
black models occupying 4.9% in Fall/Winter 2008 and 8.4% in Spring/Summer 2011
then promising results can be achieved, but this is not to say that the statistics
will not decrease next season. There is no sure sign of improvement to be seen
in these statistics and no way of predicting the racial diversity of the
Fall/Winter 2011 shows in New York, or indeed any other fashion capital,
because there are no guarantees here. One could have easily predicted a sharp
rise in the number of models of African descent following Barack Obama’s
electoral victory at the beginning of 2009 (looking at the Fall/Winter 2010
statistics compared to those of Fall/Winter 2009), but the increase here was
only 0.5%. New York Fashion Week designers clearly have no great desire to jump
on the Barack Obama bandwagon in terms of genuine ethnic visibility.
Britain is not immune
to such racial discrimination regarding its models, and several modelling agency
C.E.Os have stood against the grain and campaigned for change. Two of these
would be Carole White, of Premier Model Management, and Sola Oyebade. Sola, the
founder of Mahogany Model Management, based the company around the motto
‘Injecting colour into mainstream fashion’. Mahogany aims to properly represent
people of colour in the modelling industry and Oyebade has also become affiliated
with the annual Top Model of Colour awards. He has protested against London
Fashion Week’s lack of ethnicity, saying that the organisers ‘refuse to put a
fair proportion of models of colour on the catwalk... London Fashion Week &
the British Fashion Council are blatantly open about the "industry
Apartheid" they are practising’ (2008). In response, a spokesperson for
the British Fashion Council (BFC) suggested that it is a designer’s
responsibility to choose their own models and the BFC has no control over ‘the
aesthetic’ of a show. However the BFC offered to write to the designers ‘to
remind them of the culturally diverse community we live in when casting models
for their shows and ensuring that those models truly reflect that diversity’.
They also reminded Oyebade that ‘Model of the Year at the British Fashion
Awards 2008 went to Jourdan Dunn, highlighting the role she is playing in
increasing the profile of black models’ which, though a brilliant achievement
for Dunn, hardly indicates a seismic shift in the attitude of the fashion
industry as a whole.
Meanwhile, Carole White
has been working as a modelling agent for many years and ‘after a brief golden
age in the Eighties and Nineties, Ms White's analysis suggests that fashion
show designers and the industry media have regressed to an earlier, more
blinkered approach’ to black models (Sharp, R., 2008).
What are the detrimental effects of
white dominance in fashion?
The fashion industry
plays a vital part in the economy and is highly effective at reaching out to
consumers and influencing their lives. The clothes we choose to wear every day
can often be carefully considered and millions of people consult fashion magazines
for advice or inspiration, most notably young women. So what happens when this
main audience is presented with racially biased content on a weekly or monthly
basis, and it becomes alien to see a non-European face within editorial content?
Carol Tulloch, a
research fellow in Black Visual and Material Culture at the V&A, believes
that ‘young black people will not struggle to find role models if there are
none in fashion magazines, as they can use other outlets. These days there’s
YouTube, internet forums and all kinds of music channels which will give them a
chance to learn about black culture.’ However, she admits that ‘black women are
under-used in fashion’ and greater visibility would be a positive change (to
Polly Allen, 2010).
Even one of the most prominent
and successful black models, Naomi Campbell, is little-used in fashion
magazines and her personal problems often overshadow her working life. Whilst
Campbell appeared on the cover of Interview magazine and the key
fashion shoot was staged around her, the narrative of this shoot detracted from
the positivity of her prominence. Interview magazine chose to show Campbell as
a dominatrix, subjecting her male companion to violence and humiliation, which
seemed to painfully echo her real-life reputation as an aggressive woman who
has been frequently accused of physically abuse her own staff. This overshadows
Campbell’s position as a role model to many non-white women, which was
discussed in the accompanying interview by Tony Shafrazi, along with her
humanitarian work.
Naomi Cambell for Interview Magazine, 2010, shot by Mert & Marcus.
[Image via Fashionbombdaily.com]
Carol Tulloch, like
many other academics specialising in black culture, believes that ‘Naomi
Campbell broke barriers – I know it’s a bit of a cliché to say that, but she
did such a lot for black women, especially when she worked with photographers
such as Ray Petri, who used black models when not many others would’ (to Polly
Allen, 2010). The photo shoot in Interview magazine does not present Campbell
as breaking any barriers beyond those of taste.
What conclusions can we draw from
this?
As the journalist Nell
Frizzell questioned, ‘Will the recession make publishers, advertisers and
editors even more wary of having black people in their magazines?’ and it is
honestly difficult to tell. Publishers are genuinely suffering in the
recession, but knowing the success of the Black Issue, maybe greater non-white
visibility would gain readers for a magazine as well as media exposure and
revenue. However, there is the opposite risk of magazines using the recession
as an excuse for not using black figures, leaving them to “play it safe” with
Caucasian-filled pages.
The way forward, as I
see it, would be to start with the catwalk and then magazines will follow
accordingly. Robin Givhan, blogging for the Washington Post, admitted that ‘Sure,
it would be nice to have a veritable United Nations on the runway. But this is
fashion and it's all about personal vision, not we-shall-overcome’ (2008). If
the designers begin to see non-white people in their creative vision then our
fashion magazines will be the first to jump on that particular trend. Yet model
aesthetics do not change as rapidly as the seasons of fashion; Supermodels held
court for the 80s and 90s until the waif look arrived with grunge, and that
malnourished look has remained popular for the majority of catwalk stars ever
since. With every attempt at differentiation on the catwalk, waves of scandal have
followed, so it’s hardly surprising that ethnicity will not be embraced
overnight.
In the words of
Sessilee Lopez, ‘I’m hopeful that one day the industry will see that black — in
all its shades — is beautiful’ (Blay, 2010). In light of Vogue Italia’s Black
Issue, it is evident that using non-Caucasian models does not damage
circulation figures in the slightest, and consumers are clearly supportive of
diversity in fashion magazines and on the catwalk. There is no real excuse not
to take a leap of faith and give the public what it deserves, which is a
fashion industry that won’t just take the money of ethnic minorities, but will
represent them and acknowledge them as fashionable too. Homogenous content is
unremarkable and incredibly lazy in an industry which defines itself on being
inspirational and creative, and it is time to move on.
What do you think - is it time for things to change? Let me know.
