Brazilians Push For 20% Black Model Quota
LatestVogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani runs a web portal, Vogue Black, dedicated to black women and fashion, issued a famous all-black issue, and has recently put Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Jay-Z on the covers of her magazine and its counterpart, L’uomo Vogue. So Sozzani’s a little pissed that Liz Jones didn’t call her for her “Is Fashion Racist? Yes” piece in the Daily Mail last week. On her editor’s blog, as rendered by Google Translate and lightly polished by us, Sozzani writes, “Let’s step back. It is true that the models of color are a very small percentage. It is also true that those who succeed, then become famous and remain forever, whether Naomi, Iman, Pat Cleveland, or Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede, Tyra Banks, and many others.” Sozzani puts the origins of the problem in modeling agencies and their scouting methods, which largely target Eastern Europe and (the whiter parts of) South America: “There would be more if the agencies did more scouting in that direction.” Of course, you could also say that if more magazines used black models, agencies would scout more of them. [Vogue.it]
Alexandra Shulman, the editor-in-chief of British Vogue, told Jones in that piece that the fashion industry isn’t racist “in the slightest. There have always been black players on the scene — at the moment look at the stylist Edward Enninful, make-up artist Pat McGrath and [models] Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede and Joan Smalls, who are at the top of the tree.” Well, for his part, Enninful says, “You know, I look around the industry, there’s still very few black people.” [HuffPo]
Protesters are calling for São Paulo fashion week, Brazil’s largest fashion week, to require designers who show there to hire at least one black model for every four white models. In 2008, São Paulo’s public prosecutor found that of the 1,128 models booked for fashion week, just 28 were black. (The prosecutor was investigating because the event receives partial public funding — meaning that millions of Brazil’s black, mixed race, and indigenous citizens were paying to support an event that only hired just 0.02% black people for its most visible positions.) After that inquiry, event organizers agreed to a voluntary 10% quota of black and indigenous models for two years. But this season, the first quota-free season, almost no models of color models were hired says Frei Davi Santos, who organized a protest of the event. “São Paulo fashion week sells the image of a Swiss Brazil where everyone is white and blue-eyed. The organisers…forget that more than half of Brazil’s population is black.” [Guardian]
Tavi Gevinson wrote her first piece for xojane.com. It’s a “What’s in my bag” piece. She writes: “For some reason I’m always expecting ‘What’s In My Bag’ to become some juicy confessional, with descriptions like, ‘My will, that body I killed, and a convenient Google Maps of where Amelia Earheart and Biggie Smalls currently reside.’ Sore disappointment follows when it’s just a lot of really pretty makeup and Prada iPhone cases.” Gevinson writes about what was in her locker by the end of the school year: jazz shoes, play-doh, a wig, and “a very questionable Ziploc bag full of some strange half-liquid/half-solid green/brown mush. I wanna say it’s from an old lunch but I don’t eat healthy stuff.” [xojane]
Here’s a sampling of photos from the new book by Dolce & Gabbana about male model David Gandy. [Vogue UK]
Marilyn Monroe‘s white dress sold for $5.6 million. [CNN]
Prada‘s fall campaign stars Frida Gustavsson, as well as unknown new models Ondria Hardin and Kelly Mittendorf. [Fashionologie]
Lara Stone appears with brown hair on the new cover of Vogue Russia. [Models.com]
- Iman is going to be a guest editor at Essence.com. [Modelinia]
- The next issue of InStyle is scratch-and-sniff. Surely this will save publishing. [DFR]
- Xintang, Guangzhou, a world center of denim manufacturing, was rocked by protests this past weekend. Details are only emerging now because of the difficulties of reporting independently in China, but according to Women’s Wear Daily it is understood that thousands of garment workers took to the streets after “rumors spread online that security agents had killed a street vendor and manhandled his pregnant wife, but officials say the rumors were largely untrue.” Largely. Plants shut down and protesters scuffled with police. Millions of Chinese migrant workers staff these factories, but are ineligible for many basic rights and subject to different laws than Guangzhou natives. “Chinese citizens are tied to the cities of their birth by a household registration system that makes it difficult to get basic benefits like health care and education for their children when they move for work.” [WWD]
- Tan tights are selling well this spring in the U.K. Pippa, what have you done? [Telegraph]
- Despite $40 million in emergency rescue financing, which saved the company from bankruptcy two months ago, American Apparel‘s share price has again fallen below $1 — which means that the clothier could face delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. The shareholder AGM, scheduled for today, should be interesting as always. [NYPost]
- Nicola Formichetti is promising to post “uncensored” video of his Mugler men’s wear show, scheduled for Wednesday, on XTube. [WWD]
- “Brazil’s hottest new model is tall, dark, and glamorous. She’s also a he.” That is the worst dek of any story about Lea T. EVER. Shame on you, Newsweek.[Newsweek]
- Target workers at a store in Valley Stream, New York, voted against unionizing. [WWD]
- Robin Givhan wrote her entire column about how Obama and Boehner dressed for their round of golf. (“Boringly” apparently didn’t cover it.) “In terms of attire, one did not upstage the other by looking more sophisticated or fashionable — or elitist, God forbid. They took their style cues from the suburban cul-de-sacs of America.” [TDB]
- Meanwhile, Cathy Horyn didn’t like Lady Gaga‘s outfits in her latest video. “she looked embalmed in the black Versace harness (apparently from Gianni Versace‘s final collection), and I don’t know why Donatella Versace said she was honored by Gaga’s selection, unless, of course, she thought she had to say something nice about the superstar. But a D.O.A. video doesn’t help the House of Versace. Be choosier, Ms. Versace.” [On The Runway]
- Naomi Campbell, whose most famous denim association is that time she assaulted her maid when she couldn’t locate a pair of Stella McCartney jeans fast enough for Campbell’s liking, will design a denim collection for moribund label Fiorucci. [Sassybella]
- The Times compared a dinner given in Milan by GQ to a fashion family picnic. Everyone knows everyone: “Tom Ford, whose label is partly underwritten by the Zegna woolen empire, rubbing shoulders with Anna Zegna, who started her fashion career with Versace and who was chatting with Bruno Ragazzi, the silk magnate who helped develop the lucrative Versace home accessories business and who is the boyfriend of the designer Angela Missoni.” Missoni, for her part, was more pointed. “Yes, it is like a family dinner. If your family is the Mafia.” [On The Runway]
- Certain states are considering laws that would make every single eBay and Amazon and Etsy and Craigslist and other online seller have to charge sales tax on every sale. Which would suck. [WWD]
- Jean-Paul Gaultier began his career in Pierre Cardin‘s workshop. And Cardin hasn’t forgotten it, or the unisex doggie jumpsuit he once designed: “You are a true designer when people recognise your work without even looking at the label. This is the case for Jean Paul Gaultier. I remember him suggesting a number of really amusing things, like a canine spacesuit — a unisex jumpsuit for dogs — and a wedding outfit for bride and groom.” [Vogue UK]
- Vintage shopping with Christian Siriano sounds fun. [WWD]
- An Atlanta salon was robbed of $30,000 worth of hair extensions. [CBS]