Thursday, January 29, 2009

2009 Spring Couture:African-American Models


CHRISTIAN DIOR



JEAN PAUL GAULTIER






CHRISTIAN LACROIX


CHANEL


GIVENCHY


VALENTINO

The usual suspects of African-American models were on the Paris runway. Chanel Iman, Jourdan Dunn, Sessilee Lopez and Aminata Niaria. It's a damn shame you can count them all on just one hand.

I guess I was being too optimistic to think the designers would cast more African-Americans in their shows after the Italian Vogue "Black Issue". There are numerous fabulous African-American models who just do only one or two shows a season while their Caucasian counter-parts do an average of 20 shows a season. Why can't we be represented more fairly on the runway?

A friend of mine who used to model in New York informed me that it's not always the designers fault. African-American models have a bad reputation for being late, unprofessional and having a bad attitude...ouch! I only know of one model who can get away with that and it's Naomi Campbell because she is fierce on the runway. If you are not Naomi, and do have these characteristics you can't blame anyone for your foolishness!

No comments: