Something to Know About Modeling

In the 1990s when the fashion and modeling industry was evolving rapidly, several issues raised their head. One among them was the glaring issue that was rarely mentioned, hidden as it was beneath the glamour and gloss of the industry and never spoken about in the open, and that was racism and discrimination within the business. In fact, the Black Girls Coalition (BGC) an association of leading models openly talked about this by holding press conferences and media discussions in an effort to deal with the issue effectively.

They expressed outrage at subtle but increasingly defined and unmistakable racism that existed at every step. Anything labeled 'Black' was hardly given importance; in fact the very obvious lack of Black personnel in areas associated with fashion or modeling were looked at and treated in a different manner. There were no Black designers, directors, editors or fashion photographers who were not 'controlled' by the White majority. The few Black models were always advised to dress and behave in a certain manner; they could not wear their hair curly, close cropped, wavy or in spiky twists. What hurt them most was the comparison that the hairstyle resembled those of "militants". Invariably they were forced to wear wigs or hair weaves to match the looks of their White counterparts.

A few Black models, like Roshumba Williams and Phina set a precedent by revolting against this by choosing to wear their hair the natural way it was, short or wiry or in twisted plaits

Whether or not any perceptible changes ensued is still a matter of interesting debate because discrimination and racism still exist in many work places around the world. It is a notable point that now Black in the western world is termed as African-American.
Statistics and Surveys

However, the grievances raised by the models association received a big spurt from the Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City's ground breaking report, "Invisible People". It provided statistics of how Blacks and people of various ethnic groups from around the world were overlooked for positions even if they were qualified or had the requisites to bring value to such functions. It pointed out that Blacks constituted over 14% of the US population and comprise over 12% of magazine readership (figures relating to 1993), yet less than 3% of advertisements and job opportunities depicted Blacks.

In a shocking statistic, a special survey of repeat advertisements by leading fashion advertisers then very rarely, most likely never, ran captions or ads depicting Blacks (African-Americans or Asian Americans) to promote their products, even when situations demanded identification more with Black culture or society. As an example they quoted the ad campaign of Calvin Klein that had a White rapper and a White model promoting low-slung jeans and crooning rap music; an ideal scene to promote Black models and Black culture. It doesn't stop with that; clearly the company was capitalizing on a mindset that perpetuated a large part of the majority White population and sales went up by over 30%.

One of the prime reasons for the grossly unequal opportunities was the lack of legal jurisdiction that governed advertising, as found by the trade publication, Advertising Age which was quoted as saying that nearly "55% of magazine readership agreed with the view that there were too few Blacks in print and media ads".