Fashionably Not Diverse

I’m just saying; Fashion & diversity do not go hand in hand. Let’s not fool ourselves.

This is larger than Black models being in low representation. You see very few to other racial groups represented in magazines or on covers.

While I was at Fashion Week, I spotted very few models of color in general. Some shows did much better than others like Vivienne Tam, Tracy Reese & Zac Posen.

My other observation at Fashion Week was the very diverse crowd of press and show attendees. You had people from across the globe; men, women, Black/Brown, White, Yellow, gay, straight, little people, gender benders, mutha fuckas, other??? etc. Then you get into some shows and there was a total lack of diversity. Totally!

I guess I’m saying that this is not a black & white issue, it’s an overall lack of diversity & if there is going to be a conversation, it should center around that & not one group.

h/t Racialicious / Minh-Ha T. Pham
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Jezebel – Aug 27, 2010
How Many Black Models Were In The September Issues?
By: Dodai Stewart

In fall 2007, WWD and The New York Times published pieces about the absence of black models on the fashion runways. We did our own tally of black models in fashion magazines, and came up with some shocking statistics.

At the time, we were counting black models in fashion editorials — not ads, not beauty spreads — but fashion shoots in the coveted feature well.

Here’s how many black models we found in the October 2007 issues:

Marie Claire: 1, starring solo in a 6-page fashion editorial
W: 1, appearing on 1 page of a 20-page fashion editorial
Vogue: 0
Harper’s Bazaar: 0
Glamour: 0
Cosmopolitan: 0
Allure: 0
Lucky: 0
Elle: 0

(That year, we also looked for black models in the November, December and January 2008 issues.)

Have things changed, three years later? Yes and no. When looking at the September issues — September being the most important issue of the year for fashion-oriented magazines — we found that a few publications actually used black models in multi-page spreads in the feature well. Others? Not one black model got her own shoot.
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New York Magazine/Fashion – Aug 30, 2010
Black Models Make Weak Showing in September Fashion Magazines
By: Amy Odell

Halle Berry is on the cover of September’s Vogue, and poses for a solo spread inside the magazine, but she’s not a model, she’s an actress. Black models appeared with greater frequency in this year’s September issues than they did in magazines a couple of years ago. But according to Jezebel, which tallied the number of black models appearing in this year’s major American September editorial features, most still aren’t landing solo editorials. Vogue cast black models for multi-model editorials, but none for her own spread. Meanwhile Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Lucky, and Marie Claire cast no black models for September editorials.