Narcissistic Fashion Disorder

As France debates the causes of last year's riots by North African youths, and other European countries contemplate the risks of avian flu virus alongside older pandemics such as HIV-AIDS, it is time for us trot out the sad old story of racism in the global fashion industry. From the great houses to the runways, the failure of imagination and heart among designers, editors, advertisers and agencies has produced one painfully clear result: institutional racism in an industry which continues to neglect beauty and creativity from the poorer southern half of our globe.

To see if anything has changed, we sampled the mainboards of several of the leading Paris agencies. The panel below is representative (the agency will not be named, it uses the same business model as its competitors). Fewer than 1% of the top models in Paris are African or mixed heritage. The numbers in London and Milan are similar. More surpisingly, the best Brazilian agencies have fewer and fewer black models. Only in South Africa do we find significant numbers of black models (for example, Ice Model Management represents a full 20% black faces).

A SAMPLE SKIN SWATCHES FROM A PARISIAN MANAGEMENT