A few weeks ago I received a barrage of emails from my friends in the afrosphere. Black women from the Caribbean, UK, Africa and North America were distributing emails encouraging people of black African descent to go out and buy this issue. Social networks like myspace, facebook, black planet. Digg, twitter and other social media promoted this idea of getting people to buy this copy. Many people in the afrosphere including myself treated this with much skepticism and saw it as nothing more than gimmick.
Eighteen models were photographed for the issue they included Naomi Campbell, Iman, Tyra Banks, Liya Kebede, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland. The Guardian reported that the Fashion World is stunned by Vogue for black. Crediting the concept of the issue to editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani and the reputable photographer Steven Meisel. The elusive photographer was previously quoted in the Telegraph
“I thought, it’s ridiculous, this discrimination. It’s so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice. I have asked my advertising clients so many times, ‘Can we use a black girl?’ They say no.”
The irony about this is that models like Naomi Campbell have been talking about this for years. Many black models have been treated as exotic and the few that are there are used over and over again.It is beautiful to see the likes of Naomi and Tyra and every now and then Alek Wek on the cover of beauty magazines but that’s it.
One of the most celebrated models in the UK is Noemie Lenoir the current face of Marks and Spencer underwear, as well as Gap, Next and Victoria’s secret. Again however she is a huge exception to the rule, however one has to temper this with the fact that people of African descent, be they Afro Caribbean, Mixed or African only make up about 5% of the general populace.
The model pictured at the top of the article is 18 year old Jourdan Dunn. Jourdan who was discovered in West London, one place where the magazines sold out, was very outspoken about the lack of representation of people of colour. The article in the guardian covered the reactions she got to her statement about London Fashion week being too white. Will this issue really change things?
It has taken two of the leading lights in fashion to buck a trend, even it is a minor blip. Even though the likes of Tyra Banks, by far one of the hardest working black models out there, Naomi and now Jourdan have bucked the trend, one can’t help but wonder what difference this magazine will make. Conde Nast will have made a heck of a lot of money but imagine that in a country like the US there are no plans for a similar version. Granted they have a lot more periodicals which focus on black beauty than here in Europe it still shows an underlying issue. Black beauty may not be understood or appreciated by many in the fashion world. This issue may be a minor victory but I won’t be holding my breath for any change. In the meantime there is always AfroSugar.
When will black people realise that fighting white supremacy by replacing white racist products with their black analogues is not only a false, dead end game, but also exposes them as pitiful apers/mimics of the same system that dehumanises them? We must stop simply reacting to bigotry and rejection and assert our own BEING. On our own terms. Perhaps I am just pissing in the wind here, because what is really at stake here is not a struggle for the very survival of black people a la CIVIL RIGHTS and SELF DETERMINATION. No. Its just some ordinary middle class blacks who crave acceptance into a white world.
I won’t watch any movie or buy any magazine that doesn’t have a significant presence of Blacks in it. That’s my contribution.
Those are my exact thoughts! Much respect.