Racism and the limited coverage of international fashion

What I find more wrong than the lack of colored models in the fashion industry, is how the fashion industry completely ignores the existence of fashion talent in Asia, Latin-America and Africa. 


White people get inspired, coloured people imitate


When a Western designer copies a typical Asian, African or Latin-American way of dressing, it is called “(s)he was inspired by …”. When an Asian, African or Latin-American designer copies a typical Western way of dressing, they say (s)he's imitating the West.

Fashionweek is white

There are four fashionweeks that get a lot of coverage. Three of them all take place in European cities and only one of them in another continent, but still in a mainly white country. That Europeans are mostly focused on European fashion, I regret, but I understand. But that people from all over the world are only interested in white people’s fashion seems outdated to me. 


I think it’s time we realise that Europe is not the only real (other) civilisation in the world and that we can learn a lot from all corners of the world.

For example when I would read the tales of 1001 nights, it would strike me that the heroines of these tales were nearly always described as beautiful AND smart. A book from the Arab world written in the medieval ages tells women to be pretty and smart. American movies based on fairytales of Europe tell women that in order to be successful you need to be beautiful, sleep well and be able to talk with birds. I’m really good at the second part and I’m still working really hard on the last one.

They have adapted these movies to go better with the time spirit: for example in the movie of the little mermaid she marries the prince at the end, in the fairytale she dies. So in the movie aspiring to become part of another social class has a great result, in the fairytale not that great. If they don’t stay loyal to the original tale, why can’t they make the smartest woman in the movie the heroine instead of the evil witch?

I believe every culture has another way of respecting and disrespecting women (or people).  If only we could learn from each other on how to respect one and another, instead of comparing ourselves in a way that is the most flattering to us. Europeans and Americans about Arabs: “How sexist, women aren’t allowed to show their bodies.” Arabs about Europeans and Americans: “How sexist, women are only judged on their bodies."

Be a man. Are clothes that flatter a woman's body bad?

I really don’t understand why clothes that are not flattering for a woman’s body are often called ‘intelligent’ design, while clothes that emphasize a woman’s femininity are called vulgar or are called clothes for women that don’t understand that those clothes come from an era where they had no rights.

I find it a reflection of where feminism failed, when they said that women had the same rights as men and that women had the right to do the things men do, some feminists told women that in order to acquire these same rights that they should act more like men. There is a real fine line between telling women to act like men and between telling women that there is something wrong with being a woman.

As much as I feel like women have the right to act like men, if they feel that way, I feel like when a woman feels like acting like a woman, by dressing like one for example, it doesn’t mean that she’s doing that to please men. It doesn’t mean that she’s naïve or cheap. It means she likes dressing like a woman.

When you call clothes that make a woman look more like a man ‘intelligent’ and clothes that emphasize a woman’s body ‘vulgar’ or ‘naïve,’ you’re basically saying that men look more intelligent than women. 

Eating disorders and how they are encouraged by society.

There is something wrong with the attitude of society on weight and food.

1. When skinny or slim people brag about how many hamburgers they can eat, people call them fun and careless
2. People look down on overweight people because they supposedly can’t keep their eating impulse under control.
3. However when skinny or slim people brag about eating healthy, they will be called control freaks. 
4. When overweight people start eating healthier, people usually respond very positive. The problem is that some will also respond positive, if someone overweight (nearly) stops eating, and they will keep on responding positive until (s)he has reached the point where (s)he is underweight. And than it already is too late.

So it doesn’t bother if you live healthy or not, it bothers if you look ‘healthy’ or not.


The right attitude is to always eat healthy, not because you need to ‘look healthy’, but because it just is better for you and your body. 

A fashion fairytale

Once upon a time there was a woman skinny and curveless in a world where everybody loved only curves and their enormous egos.

But this woman believed in herself and a better world. 

So she would imagine, create, dream, live, until she had created the fashion universe. 

A universe where she wasn’t skinny, but where she was slender. 

But this new world she had created, evolved and after a while everybody loved only slender and their enormous egos.

Are there too little coloured women in magazines or too many white women?

This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival

The fashion industry often is criticized for not using enough coloured models. This lack of coloured models in the high-end fashion industry is merely a reflection of the racism in our society. And a reflection of how the fashion world is merely interested in capturing the time spirit and that it does not have any vision of their own on how the future will or should be.

However, I feel like black people are in a better way presented than white women in fashion magazines, because ...

Only smart and eloquent black models are featured

At first, one of the reasons the fashion industry does not like using black models is because black people are associated with poverty, violence and hip hop. Luxury brands and fashion magazines don’t want to become associated with these things in any kind of way.

So when a fashion magazine does feature a coloured model for a major fashion spread, usually the fashion spread is accompanied with an interview of the black model to explain that she do is rich, not violent and not into dancing like a **. 

Often the articles are written in such a manner that it looks like these black models are one of the few signs of intelligent life in the fashion industry. 

Only succesfull and responsible black women are used as a spokesperson

(Racist) people see black people as poor, lazy, aggressive and stupid. If a black person does something that only slightly does not confirm to the stereotype, (racist) people won’t notice it. Only when a black person does something completely the opposite of what (s)he would be expected to do according to their stereotype, (racist) people will see that black person as not poor, aggressive or stupid. 

So if a brand chooses for a black woman to represent their brand, they usually choose for a famous successful hardworking woman that would also be a perfect daughter-in-law, because otherwise she’ll be assumed to be poor, lazy and aggressive. White women that are chosen as spokespeople don’t have to be that much. Just being the daughter or girlfriend of someone famous or rich is already more than enough.

So for a black woman to be featured in a magazine they need to be intelligent, responsible, eloquent, successful, hardworking and beautiful too. A white woman just needs to be 15 and beautiful or the daughter/girlfriend of someone famous or rich.

This makes black women feel that you need to be intelligent, responsible, eloquent and beautiful to get what you want or you would need to be white, while it makes white woman feel that only beauty matters and that beauty can give you anything you want, unless you're the daughter/girlfriend of someone famous or rich. In that case you don't need to be or do anything at all.

Note: what does affect coloured people’s self image is how these coloured people that do are featured often have ‘a white face’ with another skin: black women with a more narrow nose and Asians with almond shaped eyes. What also affects them in a negative way is how these models often are more fair-skinned than other people from their race.


Note 2: Is the tide turning? Walter Van Beirendock used exclusively black models for his Autumn/Winter 2011 fashion show. He's not the most known fashion designer and might not be the first one to do is, but he do is  the head of the fashion department of the Royal Antwerp Academy of Arts, an academy that is educating the latest generation of fashion designers.  

Be pretty, happy

Why do luxury brands claim they want to appeal to successful, intelligent and self-confident women and at the same time seem to address their advertising to the dumbest and most insecure women? I don’t believe that successful, intelligent and self-confident women can be persuaded into buying something by an ad of a 15-year old model looking at them as if someone just farted.

If all other industries wouldn’t constantly promote that beauty is important to be happy, I don’t think the beauty or the fashion industry would sell much.

How do other industries promote this message?

Well, advertisers believe that when they put pretty and happy people in their ads that you will after a while associate their brand with pretty people and with happy people.

What they seem to forget, is that their ads are always accompanied by other ads. In one commercial break you see a lot of pretty and happy people, all of them with other brands and products. So it's more likely that you will associate beauty and happiness together, instead of associating beauty and happiness with all these different brands and products.

And even though I have never done a survey on this, I do believe that people indeed are more convinced that beautiful people are happier, than that for example drinking coca cola will make you happy and pretty.

But is it true? Do you really need to be pretty to be happy?

 You often see psychological studies claiming that beautiful people are more successful and happier than ugly people. However it often are studies that only compare (extremely) beautiful people to (extremely) ugly people. Studies that compare ugly to average looking to beautiful people, usually find that average looking and beautiful people are more successful and happy than ugly people and that there aren’t any significant differences between beautiful and average looking people. So it aren't only beautiful people that feel happy, but average looking people feel just as happy. Ugly people unfortunately do globally are less happy.82T3PCQCAM

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Clothes made for average looking women

And here is the second thing that goes wrong in the process: when designers want to try out how their clothes look in real life, they don’t only envision them on unrealistically tall creatures.

They try them out on a perfectly proportioned tailor’s dummy. The breast, the waist and the hips of these dummies are a skinnier version of the average breasts, waists and hips of all women.


The irony is that as good as no woman has these average proportions. They have more curves or less curves. They are apple shaped or pear shaped.


So clothes are made to fit the average woman. The average woman has 2.5 kids. The average woman does not exist. We’re all wearing clothes cut for this average women, while it doesn’t fit any of us.