Sunday 24 February 2008

Black and brown not in fashion

This is just one of many recent articles bemoaning the conspicuous and unrepresentative absence of non-white skin on the catwalks and in fashion shoots these days.

It seems to me that there are fashions in models, as well as models in fashion. It as if the fashionistas felt they had ticked a box when Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and Iman broke through. They then moved on to the next category - one which endures, judging by the photos in this weekend's supplements - wan, emaciated and apparently addicted and/or abused.

There may be hope. According to the Independent, Liverpool and North-West England generally are going to be the new centres of catwalk talent. Those much-photographed women who have already emerged from the Mersey-Irwell axis have normal-shaped bodies and, far from wanting to appear chalky-white, have in some cases over-bronzed their skin.

The promising bit is that this area of the UK has, next to Cardiff, one of the longest-established and best-integrated non-white communities. It surely cannot be long before beautiful Afro-Caribbean-Chinese-Irish models stride out of the North-West and on to our fashion pages.

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