The writer put it perfectly when she wrote :
it seems, in the end, the blackness preferred by the fashion industry is a "blackness" best supplied by someone who is not black at all
As a light-skinned curly haired Black Woman, I'm even asking myself What's up with this Black-face instead of Black Faces in Fashion Lately ?
For too long Black Models, Designers and Consumers have complained about exactly this. Why are you making the Black Supermodels Disappear Fashion Designers ? Aren't they as beautiful as your non ethnic models in your ethnic inspired fashion shows ? Or are you just going Colorblind - Literally ?
Now we see it becoming mainstreamed as a fashion concept for what ? Exotica; more alike Rubbish..
Europe has long thought that it could mask it's racism behind standards for models; that excluded Ethnic looking features. Yet these are the very same features they are imitating in the French Vogue Black-face model shoot. look closely at the vogue photo shoot below. Clearly this European girl is dressed in 1970's ethnic style fashion doing a 1900 style impersonation from a minstrel show. So why is she modeling 1970's ethnic style In Black-face and an Afro wig with a Real Black Baby ? The whole mix is too racist to decipher.
This only happens inside the mind of a white racist. it's a painful view of their fears dressed up; with no where to go..
When I read this piece it just instantly made me want to scream Hallelujah ! oh yes tonite that was the whole experience in a word - we are so damn tired of this Black-face BS in Fashion that this article touched off a torrent of feelings.
Please take a moment and Read the piece below. We are in TOTAL Agreement.