Race in Fashion

I read a blog posting that made me wince--writer/commentator Michaela Angela Davis decried Essence Magazine's choice of a white fashion director on her Facebook page. An article about her posting is here.

The fallout from her public lament is everywhere and it throws more salt in the already open wound of black to white 'reverse' racism.

I don't fault Davis for wondering aloud why out of all the fashion director jobs available, the position at Essence was offered to a woman whose background is not African American. It is a valid question since the fashion industry is not known for its embrace of diversity of late. The last black supermodel is Naomi Campbell and the only black woman to regularly make the cover of any magazine these days is Oprah Winfrey (although FLOTUS Michelle Obama has done pretty well). Remember when Italian Vogue used all black models to point out their relative absence on the catwalk and other mainstream fashion magazines? That only happened once...

So, it is not racism to question the decision when all indications are that black women and fashion generally do not get mentioned in the same sentence. However, it is racially insensitive to suggest that the job of a fashion editor is somehow informed by one's skin color.

Now I am not an expert, but I am going to go out on a limb and describe the job of fashion editor as that of the person who picks the clothes for the photo shoots. Correct me if I am wrong...

Because if that is all the job entails, then having a white woman in that job isn't a slap in the face or any other major catastrophe. Black women's style choices have been dictated by white women in the fashion industry for years. I saw "The Devil Wears Prada" and if Miranda Priestly/Anna Wintour is really as powerful as the film suggests, then for years, every woman in America from Naomi and Tyra on the runway to Cousin Rita in the hood owes some aspect of her fashion choices to a bunch of gay men and a very shewd woman in an office building in New York City.

I want to put all of this in perspective--I want us to be outraged over racial indifference that reinforces barriers and obstacles in career fields where black and brown women have struggled to gain recognition. It bothers me that for the most part, blacks are still rare in the fashion industry as designers, models, photographers and merchants. But thanks in part to reality shows like Project Runway and America's Next Top Model, we know that the talent is out there. So my hope is that the new fashion director at Essence will make it her business to showcase that talent in its pages...otherwise, Essence will continue to simply be the black version of Glamour or Cosmopolitan.