Tuesday, August 05, 2008

It's International Blog Against Racism Week and while the google links I have found seem to focus heavily on fandom icons I'm not going to go there. Racism is so apparent in the fashion industry, not only are there far more white models, a view that is widely recognised but it's apparent that the entire business of fashion rests on the disparity between the wealthy white, western countries and other generally non-white nations where the body of the manufacturing of clothing takes place.

There should be more black and Asian models in our magazines and on our catwalks but the fashion industry is weird about physical appearance. It's biases run far beyond the ethnicity of models, it's a thoughtless industry and this is demonstrated in all kinds of ways. Here is a link to a blog post from Threadbared about racist language online and the way it ties into height.

I don't really know what else to say about this, I want to nod my head to IBARW and the importance of the message, particularly when we're talking about international industry, particularly where clothing is concerned because it functions on a foundation of racism, of presenting people in incredibly negative ways and treating them badly. This isn't a surprise, it's bad that it just keeps happening, it's bad that it can't be stopped and it's bad that it's propped up by the various media that cover fashion. Why continue in this vein? Sort it out fashion industry.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Another datapoint. According to this somewhat breathless book on Luxury brands in Asia a substantial majority of the luxury industry's sales (which isn't exactly the same as the fashion industry I understand) comes from Asia.