NotBlack Is The New Black At Sao Paulo Fashion Week

Activist groups and Black models have lamented the lack of representation of non-White models on the catwalks of Sao Paulo’s recent Fashion Week:

“I think the business is smaller for black girls,” says 19-year-old Rafaela Favero. “But I don’t know if it is because we are just black - but we are different, our pattern of beauty is different - our hair and our bodies.”

“In a fashion show it is practically impossible,” says 24-year-old Rafael Milagres.

“You have to have luck, and someone that suggests your name. Because nowadays to do a fashion show you have to be in an agency with a majority of white people, as is the case with most agencies in Brazil, while just 2% of models are black.”

Some designers, however, insist the lack of models on their runways isn’t due to bias, but coincidence:

Dudu Bertholini, designer for Cori, whose show on the first day involved no black models, was adamant: “If the models are good, it doesn’t matter if they are black or white.”

“I don’t say no to black models, I love black models. I didn’t wear because I didn’t feel like wearing, not because I have any prejudice in wearing black models.”

I asked him about claims from black models that they found it hard to get work at shows like Sao Paulo Fashion Week.

“They do? Are they good models? Are they beautiful? Are they tall? Are they good enough?” he asked.

However, a similar complaint had been voiced at other Fashion Weeks around the globe, as well as against the fashion magazine industry at large, where non-White models are notably underrepresented, arguably creating and perpetuating a particular, racist and xenophobic standard of beauty.

Also, haha. His name is Dudu!

Race row over Brazil fashion week [BBC]