{"id":54905,"date":"2013-04-27T11:30:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-27T16:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=54905"},"modified":"2017-09-17T08:52:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T13:52:41","slug":"whiteness-and-tokenism-on-the-runway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/04\/27\/whiteness-and-tokenism-on-the-runway\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiteness and Tokenism on the Runway"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fashion industry is not inclusive of racial and ethnic minorities. Many of the industry\u2019s most celebrated and acclaimed fashion houses rarely cast models of color for their runway shows. Fall 2013 was one of the worst seasons in diversity for casting. Almost 83% of the models on the runway were white (source<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a>The result is an incredibly\u00a0homogeneous\u00a0look on the runway.\u00a0 Check out photos of the Fall 2013 Gucci show (source<\/a>) and the Fall 2013 Calvin Klein show (source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Faintly aware of this critique, some designers put a minority model on the runway every odd season. But while look-alike white models are hired en masse, designers often limit just how much color they\u2019re willing to include.\u00a0 Chanel Iman, an extremely successful multiracial model, told The Times<\/a><\/i>: \u201cDesigners have told me, \u2018We already found one black girl. We don\u2019t need you anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Leila Ananna, a casting director for Burberry, Gucci, Emilio Pucci, Saint Laurent, and more, thinks that this is okay.\u00a0 Commenting on the lack of runway diversity, she said<\/a>: \u201cWe think we need to keep in mind that these are shows. A show needs to make you dream, and it doesn\u2019t necessarily need to represent reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ananna\u2019s words pose many concerns. The idea that fashion shows are supposed to make you dream suggests that everyone is white in this idealized world. In contrast, I find the idealization of the homogeneous aesthetic to be a reflection of racism; this is a nightmare, not a dream.<\/p>\n

Rebs (Wooyoung) Lim is currently a student attending Occidental College. She is interested in minoring in Sociology and majoring in Urban and Environmental Policy. She does not have a twitter account, sadly.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fashion industry is not inclusive of racial and ethnic minorities. Many of the industry\u2019s most celebrated and acclaimed fashion houses rarely cast models of color for their runway shows. Fall 2013 was one of the worst seasons in diversity for casting. Almost 83% of the models on the runway were white (source): The result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[225,283,285,20063,1757,76],"class_list":["post-54905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-clothesfashion","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54905"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71366,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54905\/revisions\/71366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}