Runways Fade to White

Hat tip: NYTimes.com

Runways Fade to White
By GUY TREBAY
Published: October 14, 2007

IN the days of blithe racial assumptions, flesh crayons were the color of white people. “Invisible” makeup and nude pantyhose were colored in the hues of Caucasian skin. The decision by manufacturers to ignore whole segments of humanity went unchallenged for decades before the civil rights movement came along and nonwhite consumers started demanding their place on the color wheel.

Nowadays the cultural landscape is well populated with actors, musicians, media moguls and candidates for the American presidency drawn from the 30 percent of the American population that is not white. Yet, if there is one area where the lessons of chromatic and racial diversity have gone largely unheeded, it is fashion. This reality was never plainer than during the recent showings of the women’s spring 2008 collections in New York and Europe.

Although black women in the United States spend more than $20 billion on apparel each year, according to estimates by TargetMarketNews.com, it was hard to discern an awareness of this fact on the part of designers showing in New York, where black faces were more absent from runways than they have been in years.

Of the 101 shows and presentations posted on Style.com during the New York runway season, which ended a month ago, more than a third employed no black models, according to Women’s Wear Daily. Most of the others used just one or two. When the fashion caravan moved to London, Paris and Milan, the most influential shows — from Prada to Jil Sander to Balenciaga to Chloé and Chanel — made it appear as if someone had hung out a sign reading: No Blacks Need Apply.

Rest of article is Here.

While we don't do a lot of popular culture on this blog, I thought this was important for this reason:

The marginalization of the Black Woman.

Despite her buying power- TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS STRONG - the Black Woman continues to be undervalued and outright disrespected by the fashion industry. We are consumers, and it should not be a stretch to be able to see ourselves in fashion magazines. This is also about imagery and White Supremacy and the continual perpetration that the only beauty worth celebrating is White. WE come in all shades and shapes, our features run the entire spectrum, and yet, we are not celebrated. It shows up on the runways, and then in the magazines, which spread images of beauty all over the world. Nothing against our Sisters from the Diaspora, but I'm sure that there are dark-skinned American born Black models who are just as beautiful as Alek Wek. I'm sure that there are Black models as beautiful as Liya Kedebe. I take nothing away from their beauty, but what about the home-grown Black American model...why is she so disregarded and disrespected. I do my part - the last time I bought Vogue was 2 months ago- because Michelle Obama had an article in it. Before then, I hadn't bought one in years. Ditto with Harpers Bazaar and Elle.

What about our daughters, sisters, young women we mentor? What are we supposed to tell them? Most young girls go through their fashion stage - we know that. We know that there is a time when they are pouring over the fashion magazines, when they can't wait to see them, and to look in them with their girlfriends and discuss the trends and what they like and don't like. How hurtful is it to our young women when they can't see anyone who looks like them in these magazines. I know that there is Essence, and on the point of putting forth images of Black beauty, they're still very good even after the sale. But, are we supposed to tell our young women to stay away from those other magazines, denying them that female right of passage? There's something not right,when, in the year 2007, our young women will see no more representatives of themselves in those magazines than they did in 1957. There's something fundamentally foul about that.