A New Benchmark Of Beauty: Black Models

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A New Benchmark Of Beauty: Black Models
A New Benchmark Of Beauty: Black Models

Video: A New Benchmark Of Beauty: Black Models

Video: A New Benchmark Of Beauty: Black Models
Video: Black Girls 👩🏾👩🏾‍🦱 TikTok Compilation that Will Make Your Day 2024, March
Anonim

Why black girls have become the new standard of beauty.

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Models of African descent at the shows of top brands are not surprising, but just being black is no longer enough. A new trend is the appearance of very black models on the catwalks. "Lenta.ru" studied the phenomenon and figured out its origins.

“When I was younger, I always felt insecure about my own appearance. I looked at the stars of cinema and fashion, although they were black, but none of them had such a skin as mine. I always felt unattractive, a real outsider, Anok Yai confessed to the New York Times shortly after becoming the first black model to open a Prada show since 1997. Yai is only 19 years old, and she is predicted a great future, comparable to the success of Naomi Campbell. By the way, it was Naomi who was the previous model of African descent, who opened the Prada show.

But if Black Panther, as journalists and fans called Campbell, was a unique phenomenon in the 90s, then Yai is not alone. “Now, when I look at the catwalks during fashion weeks, I am filled with optimism. There are so many girls on them who look exactly like me,”she does not hide her joy. Another young African woman, Adut Akech, has already taken part in more than 30 shows around the world, although her debut took place only in September 2017 during the Saint Laurent show. Like Yai, she was born in South Sudan, but while Anok grew up in the United States, Adut found a new home in Australia. The families of both young catwalk stars fled the civil war and genocide that raged in then-unified Sudan in the 2000s.

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“Even compared to last season, there is a noticeable increase in the number of truly black girls participating in shows,” Akech comments on the latest trends. Grace Ball, also representing South Sudan, made her catwalk debut back in 2011 and has since worked with Vivienne Westwood, Givenchy and Balmain, Kenyan Chanelle Nyasias has collaborated with Versace, Alexander McQueen and Valentino, and another Sudanese-born model, Akiima, has participated in shows Marc Jacobs and Jaсquemus.

Feed coal

According to a study by the Canadian magazine Flair, New York was the most diverse fashion week, with 37 percent of non-white models. This is followed by fashion weeks in London (35 percent), Paris (26 percent) and Milan (24 percent). True, it must be remembered that both Hispanics and Asians are classified as non-whites in North America, so the percentage of actually black models, and even more so very dark-skinned, is less.

The African presence goes beyond the catwalks. In April 2017, Edward Enninful, an English designer of Ghanaian descent, became the new editor-in-chief of British Vogue. And, naturally, he welcomes the increase in the number of very dark-skinned models in every possible way: “The skin of Africans has an amazing variety of shades of black. It's great to see their full spectrum on the runways."

However, there is no talk of any positive discrimination. At least officially. For example, Patricia Pilotti, who is responsible for the selection of models for Lacoste and Valentino, motivates her choice: “I have never really seen such a variety of girls in the portfolio of modeling agencies. But there is only one reason why I select so many black girls, and that is their beauty. However, the percentage of black girls participating in Lacoste and Valentino shows is even higher than the industry average.

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Michael Buckner / Variety / REX

Hoodia Diop

One of the reasons for such a rapid growth in interest in black girls is the demand for them from the audience. In the age of social networks, fashion brands are waiting not only for new collections of clothes, but also for new faces, new ideals of beauty. Digitalization is blurring the boundaries and making consumers of fashion content people from countries that were previously far from the catwalks and fashion weeks.

There are about a billion blacks living on Earth, and they need their heroes, their own role models. Less than a week after the Prada show, Anok Yai became a real Instagram star. Now the model's account has over 160,000 subscribers. “I expected a reaction, but I didn't think it would be so great. As a black woman with dark skin, I am proud of myself! - Yai comments on his success.

Even more popular is Hoodia Diop, a Senegalese American who claims to be the blackest model in the world. Very dark even by Senegalese standards, Diop was insulted and even bullied by her peers as a teenager. She has become a role model for tens of thousands of very black African women and has over 535,000 followers on Instagram.

Are you okay. Look at yourself in the mirror, you are beautiful,”Khudiya admonished other black black women. The problem of perceiving very dark skin as something ugly is quite acute in many African countries.

Say no to bleaching

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every third girl in South Africa has used skin whitening products at least once. In Mali, this figure is 25 percent, in Togo - 59 percent, and the leader with a result of 77 percent is Nigeria. Men also use whitening agents.

“Every day I pray and ask God why he made me black. I don't like black leather. I like white people. Blacks have an image of dangerous people, so I don't like being black. People began to treat me better when I began to look like white,”- quotes the words of the South African hairdresser Jackson Marcel BBC. Marseille is not a native of South Africa, but came from the Congo, where the skin color of most residents is darker.

Previously, a similar path was taken by India, where for years only fair-skinned actresses were filmed in Bollywood films, and only fair-skinned models walked the catwalks. British Vogue launched a crusade against skin tone discrimination in 2010: “It's time to say that as a magazine we love and have always loved the gorgeous color of Indian skin - dark, tan, bronze, gold - whatever you call it, we love it. . The publication confirmed its declaration of love with a photo shoot of five black Indian women in bikinis.

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Anok Yai

Blacks and success are no longer mutually exclusive. Millions of people around the world listen to black-made music, root for black athletes, fall in love with black actresses and actors, but most of these blacks are not black enough for boys and girls in South Sudan, Congo or the Central African Republic to identify with them. “Don't let American ideals hurt your African soul,” says Nyakim Getwich, a US-based model from South Sudan, on Instagram.

She became one of the first influencers to talk about the beauty of blue-black skin and the right of black Africans to feel beautiful. Getwich has repeatedly confessed her love for her own skin: “My dear dark, moonlight skin, sun-kissed complexion, burnt skin, or whatever they call you. You are above beauty, and my love for you is unconditional, because you are me."

And this is not only an African problem. In 2012, a documentary film Dark girls was released in the United States, dedicated to the problem of discrimination against black African-American women. The African American men who starred in it admitted that they prefer lighter-skinned girls, and very black seem to them at least funny. The film sparked a heated debate among African Americans.

Jill Viglione went even further in her study of the issue, whose article was published in 2011 in The Social Science Journal. The scientist deduced a connection between skin tone and the severity of criminal punishment. She drew her conclusion based on a study of more than 12,000 court verdicts in North Carolina between 1995 and 2009.

Viglione's verdict is disappointing: black African-American women receive more severe punishment and spend more time behind bars than fair-skinned women. So dark-skinned black models on the catwalk are not a trend or a fashion, this is another round of the struggle for equality.

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