September 7, 2012

Flashback Friday | Is the Fashion Industry Racist?

The annual Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week officially kicked off yesterday, and I am very excited to see what the designers have in store for us this season.

In addition to checking out the garments, I'm also always very interested to see which designers make the cut, how many of them are minorities, and how many designers select women of color to represent their garments on the runway.

Three years ago, I was new to blogging, but I wrote this quick post, which asked the question, "Is the fashion industry racist?"

I mean, the mere fact that I even have to ask this question probably leads to the answer.

Since Jean-Paul Gaultier's all-black fashion show held in 1997 (check out the amazing footage by clicking here), we since have not seen a fashion show of this caliber demonstrating this level of diversity. What's going on? Why don't we see a steady progression of more and more diversity in the ethnic and racial background of both the designers and the models to more adequately reflect the American populace? Why are we going backwards when it comes to diversity on the runway? And what does this say about America's projected perception of beauty?