Question of the day: Are western catwalks too white?

Posted by Helen Lee at 6:28 pm December 10th, 2007 | 1 comment

AllAfrica is asking if western catwalks are too white, with an emergency summit set to take place in London in the new year to tackle “blatant racism” in the fashion industry.

The debate was emphasized when Naomi Campbell highlighted her absence from British Vogue covers in the recent years, with The New York Times Magazine article saying that the industry is not interested in black models unless they are doing a “jungle theme, in a grass skirt holding a spear.”

What do you think?

Fashion works in cycles, and the trend to use Brazillian and Eastern European models in the last few years like Gisele Bundchen, Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Natalia Vodianova, Sasha Pivovara, Snejana Onopka and Carmen Kass is due to wind down eventually. I highly doubt (and hope) it’s not due to fashion being racist.