After an interview with model Adut Akech ran in the Australian magazine Who last week next to a photo of a different black model, Flavia Lazarus, Akech posted on Instagram to say the mix-up was unacceptable.
“This has upset me, has made me angry, it has made me feel very disrespected and to me is unacceptable and inexcusable under any circumstances,” she wrote, adding that her interview was about how people “view refugees and peoples attitude to colour in general.” “By this happening I feel like it defeated the purpose of what I stand for and spoke about.”
The magazine has apologized, the New York Times reports, but the damage is done. From Gucci clothes to Vogue editors staging racist photoshoots, no amount of tokenizing, diverse casting in magazines will get rid of the unshakeable racism in fashion. Akech isn’t staying quiet though; “This needs to stop right here,” she told the NYT.
DISCUSSION
Yeah, somebody fucked up. Sourcing photos correctly is basic - there’s a process for this, or their should be if Who’s editors are competent. It’s not just, “Does that look right?”
My guess is the editor told some low-level staffer to find a shot of her in their image bank, and the staffer was too inexperienced to know you can’t just eyeball that stuff. It’s also possible the photo was incorrectly tagged in the photo library - it happens. Bottom line, given the context, they should have been more careful.