I think what we have here goes past "Whiteness" and an even more stark lack of diversity even AMONG "white" models. Look at this lot you've got pictured here: All roughly the same height, the same hair, the same body type, and the same damned face.

This is a good match to the recent post about homogenized beauty contestants in Korea. Similar to that case, the makeup used for the show enhances the vision of sameness, although the models are also picked for a very specific body and facial type.

Oh my god, her defense of discrimination is both telling and appalling. We need to dream? Thanks, really.

it seems to me that there is a clear disconnect with how fashion houses think about their products and how human beings respond to looking at other human beings. This might not come as a shock, but it's clear that the models are the least important aspect of the show (as evidenced by the shoddy treatment they often recieve), to the people making it. That is why they so often look identical, not for some specific idea of beauty (although that obviously plays a role), but because you aren't supposed to be looking at them anyway. They are incidental to the clothes. Unfortunately this is not how people work, we look at the person first and the clothes second, and thus we have our problem.

To be fair to Ms. Ananna, it seems she was talking about using similar models to enhance a concept for the show, rather than dreaming of an all-white world. Here is the context for the quote:

"Regarding the representation of various faces [on runways], we think fashion shows have already shown it. Don't you? There are plenty of different faces in a show.Sometimes we work with more curvy girls, and others with a very androgynous type. We worked on casting with a strong direction, like all blonde girls or all brunette, for example. Or other girls who are very similar, if that helps to make the collection concept stronger.

We think we need to keep in mind that these are shows. A show needs to make you dream, and it doesn't necessarily need to represent reality."

Maybe check out how many of those models are Americans... Nowadays many models are recruited from post-Soviet block, so naturally they can't find many black ones.

See, they recruit a lot of poor, young girls, they are perfect material, not only fresh and skinny, but also desperate.

Even when the models are not white, they look white. (mostly)

I studied Fashion design for 1 year before I gave up and got the hell out of L.A. I had a professor tell me not to worry about who would be wearing the clothes I designed as they were simply hangers. I found this to be the norm among my professors, many of whom were designers. The fashion industry doesn't view models as people, they are hangers, moving clothing racks. For designers they want them all to look EXACTLY the same so that you forget that there are individuals within the clothes and instead focus solely on the clothes. However, this homogeny could just as easily be created were they to cast their ENTIRE show with models who were something other than white. But then why would they, they don't design clothes for the masses, they design clothes for the elite and the elite, that 1% of the population who ruins it for the rest of us they're white, and they typically don't like being reminded that people of color exist. The fashion industry is fu*ked up ya'll.

What gets me is the lack of poc models, yet at the same time, black face in magazines is still rather frequent.

That comment from Ananna also suggests whiteness is the ultimate form of beauty. Great post, but Chanel Iman is part Korean and Black as in BLACK. Technically everyone is `multiracial'.

Looks like the industry discriminates against the living, too. I assume undead/zombie models are cheaper, but still...

When I was living in Angola and flying through South Africa a lot, I noticed SA has its own editions of popular magazines like GQ, Glamour, Elle. And even though these editions are special to South Africa, where 79% of the population is Black African, the magazines are overwhelmingly white. I even counted the faces to get a %! Here was my blog post about it:

http://heatherleila3.blogspot.com/2012/05/normative-whiteness-in-south-african.html

Frankly, I find this eternal consensus on the fashion industry as the easy scape goat and on the reprehensibility of skinny white models too easy. Please allow me to play the devil's advocate (s/he wears Prada after all...).
1. There is, at least in part, a cause-and-effect issue to be looked at more seriously. It is clear that female (and male) standards of beauty have changed over the past centuries (and even the past decades), but could it not be that what we see on the catwalk reflects these changes rather than caused them? Beauty ideals are about social distinction. In times (or places) where abundant food was/is a luxury, looking like you have enough to eat becomes the ideal form. In our present Western world where on the whole food is abundant for most, resisting it has been turned into a form of social distinction, and the beauty ideal followed suit. The same goes with sun tans, which always used to be associated with labour = lower classes, then in the 70s and 80s became associated with a healty life of sports, and now we seem to be turning back to the no-tan ideal (because of the whole UV-light-skin-damage realisation I suppose). I'm not saying any or all of these ideals are 'good' or 'bad', but blaming the fashion industry for them reeks of blaming the messenger.
2. The race issues. According to the 2010 Census some 72% of the US population was white (or European American), 13% black, 5% Asian. While that does not completely match the numbers in the stat given in this post, there seems to be a rough match between the racial demographics of the population and the models. Apart from that, like it or not, the market for these clothes is even more predominantly that of white women, and as with all publicity for a product, also the fashion industry 'talks to its target audience', so to say. Finally, why do I never hear any comments on the racial uniformity of the models at, say, the Beijing fashion week, or Uganda fashion week?
3. Fashion shows are about the fashion. Saying that choosing models that look very similar is the "idealization of the homogeneous aesthetic" is missing the point of why the models are there and what there job is. Except for the odd case where some super-duper famous model (Naomi Campbell, say) is hired to draw attention to some lesser known designer, the models are not there to draw attention to themselves. Rather, they are there in order that the clothes are shown in the best possible, and with the clothes being at the centre of attention. One may argue whether it is the only way to achieve it, but certainly having models that look very similar is one effective way of achieving that. Think of it as the ushers in a theatre, or even as the uniform lenght, built, and haircut of military honorary guards: there is just something about such physical uniformity and the effacing of individual traits that it suggests that in certain context seems appropriate or effective. This doesn't mean that somehow we all have to look the same during our everyday lives.
I'd have more to say, but already this thing is running long. Just in case you're wondering: no, I do not work in the fashion industry myself, I'm an academic, actually...

based on the comments in the original article, it seems that the main issue stems NOT from the idea that only whites are beautiful (though it tends to reinforce that idea nonetheless) but that they should be almost invisible or incidental to the clothing. As white is the default, then white is the blank canvas. Not saying that this is a good thing, only that it comes from a different aspect of racism than the idea of ugly PoCs.

Looking at these photos feels like peeking into another world. The fashion world is so completely divorced from the reality of even an ordinary 1st world person. We can't buy their product ($$) nor would most of us want to, as the fashions are absurdly impractical, and the bodies modeling them do not resemble our own. Are such shows even meant for public consumption?

shut up.