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Fashion Magazine Numero’s March issue shoot titled ‘African Queen’ with blond-haired, blue-eyed Ondria Hardin bronzed out to darken her skin tone to portray herself as an ethnic lady. Its a controversial new spread for Numéro magazine By Anna Klassen. My question is; weren't there any black models available to pose as an "African Queen." in a spread? African queen should be a model from Africa! It would look silly to take an African or American model to pose as a "Asian Queen" or "European Queen"? Is this OK? Leave your opinion in a comment.
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Racial diversity within the fashion industry is still an issue. According to reports, at New York Fashion Week this season, an astonishing 82 percent of models were white. Of the remaining 18 percent, only 6 percent were black. And while some design houses are trying to remedy this problem—see Miu Miu’s spring campaign video that features an entirely black cast—they are few and far between.
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On Wednesday, Numéro issued a statement of apology. "For its part, Numéro Magazine, which has the utmost respect for this photographer’s creative work, firmly excludes that the latest may have had, at any moment, the intention to hurt readers’ sensitivity, whatever their origin," the statement reads. It continues: "Considering the turmoil caused by this publication, the Management of Numéro Magazine would like to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this editorial."
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But this isn’t the magazine’s first racial offense. In 2010, it used Caucasian model Constance Jablonski to portray an African mother in an editorial spread, complete with Afro and dark face paint, posing with a black baby in a field of wheat.
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What is this obsession with painting white models in bronze/black face? On the other hand I feel like blackface (when shown through a “fashion” lens) is done because a darker skin color is deemed beautiful/exotic (when the spread/clothes call for it). Apparently our skin is beautiful but our features aren’t. I am not surprised, although the fashion industry has made some improvements since 2009 in being more diverse (we’ve seen a lot more minorities on runways), this proves that we still have a very long way to go. The pictures are beautiful though :P
What are your thoughts on this spread?
black people always get offended when white pose as black but when black pose as white its not the same or they have excuses…
ReplyDeletewhy be mad, I already knew white women wants to be one hell of a african queen lol
ReplyDeleteHaving worked in fashion, I can tell you its a very racist industry. if you are not skinny, white and rich you will not be treated fairly. Period.
ReplyDeleteWhat I can’t understand is, the fashion industry constantly excludes models of color. Yet we break our pockets to wear these high end designers! I cant understand
The magazine apologized but they aren’t really sorry because I’m sure they recieved backlash for the spread they did in 2010 and it obviously didn’t seem to faze them if they did the same thing again.
ReplyDelete**sighs** this is ridiculous with the amount of black people in France and the countless number of black models in France they couldn’t find a black woman to do this spread?
ReplyDelete