At the first two shows of London Fashion Week I went to, one had all white models, the other had a single Chinese one.
Par for the course — and ironic when there were people of every ethnicity in the audience and behind the scenes at every show. Black girls are used to going to castings and being told euphemisms such as “your book is not strong enough”, “you don’t have enough experience” or the classic, “you don’t have the look for us”.
I applaud Iman and Bethann Hardison’s high-profile campaigning but in the UK,
where we are somewhat behind the US on this issue, shouldn’t we start by
approaching designers (and agents and editors) and ask them directly why they
are hesitant at using minority ethnic models?
It’s not just race — the industry shows huge reluctance to feature plus-size
and older models and the object of our latest campaign, disabled models, who
haven’t been visible on the London catwalks since Alexander McQueen featured
Paralympian Aimee Mullins in 1998. Break through with one form of diversity and
we can hopefully break down barriers to acceptance of the others.
