*UPDATED* Milan Fashion Week ... Lyndsey on her own

 



[caption id="attachment_1527" align="alignright" width="267" caption="--> Except this one. Lyndsey Scott walking for Gucci. (Photo credit: Style.com)"][/caption]

 



UPDATE: Turns out our hunch on Lyndsey Scott's islandistaness was spot on! She responded to our email query today, confirming that her mother is from Trinidad. Our islandista-spotting instincts are on point!

We're loathe to paraphrase Kanye West (especially since he ent really in style nowadays) but ... Milan Fashion Week don't like black people.

We nearly get snow blindness reviewing de pics of Milan's recently ended Fashion Week on style.com - is so de runways did white-white.

Very few black models and of course by extension, even fewer islandista models made it onto the runways of Milan and walked very few shows.

The one major exception to the rule was suspected Trini islandista Lyndsey Scott. Now our only evidence of her islandista-ness thus far is her New York Magazine profile earlier this year when she was the first black model to score an exclusive with Calvin Klein and random Trini-sounding aunts and uncles jump on New York Magazine's website to big up dey girl. But that works for us for now.

Lyndsey got lots of love from the Milanese, walking in six different shows, including big names like Gucci and Prada. Arlenis Sosa and Rose Cordero also walked in a few shows but Lyndsey definitely got the lion's share last week.

Check out more of her pics after the jump.

[caption id="attachment_1526" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Walking for Alberto Ferretti (All photo credits: Style.com)"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1528" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Blumarine"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1529" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Francesco Scognamiglio"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1530" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Gabriele Colangelo"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_1531" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Prada"][/caption]

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An islandista conundrum - Jourdan Dunn and tokenism in Milan

So anyone reading this blog would know that we here at Islandista   Jourdan Dunn. We really do. We love how she's both fierce and gazelle-like, we love that she freely admitted she wished she had a big bamsy when she was younger and we love her refreshing frankness on the paucity of black models in high fashion.

So we are torn... torn we tell you! at her recent success on the catwalk and what it means. On the one hand, Jourdan has been tearing it up - from Vogue and Elle editorials to dominating New York, London and Milan's Fashion Weeks thus far. And we love it.

However it is her dominance of Milan Fashion Week that raises yet again the troubling question of race in fashion for Jourdan was often the token black on the runways at the recently concluded Milan Fashion Week.




[caption id="attachment_755" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Lonellly... I'm so lonnelly... on my own... Jourdan Dunn was the sole black model at Etro's Fall RTW show during Milan Fashion Week. (photo credit: Marcio Madeira for style.com)"][/caption]

 

New York Magazine pointed it out in a much-commented on piece last week, noting:



While New York's runways were more diverse than in seasons past, Milan was quite the opposite. Top Italian designers Gianfranco Ferré, Giorgio Arman, Jil Sander, Marni, Missoni, Moschino, Prada and Salvatore Ferragamo featured all-white casts of models. And the few times when designers did book ethnic models, they picked from a small, highly-selective pool of girls:  Jourdan Dunn, Liu Wenn and Marina Peres (Dunn, Wen, and Peres were the most requested girls from their respective groups.)

And therein lies the rub. While we revel in Jourdan's success and love that she was the top model in London's fashion week, walking in 14 shows, we bemoan the fact that designers are using her as the token black.

The figures from Milan, which NYM collected, bear this out in grim detail. In six out of the ten shows she walked in, she was all on her own to represent the million shades of black beauty that there are out there. In the other four, she was accompanied by Chanel Iman, who seems to be the only other black model in the world as far as most designers are concerned. She walked in seven shows but only walked two on her own as the sole black model - the others were of course with Jourdan and one with Arlenis Sosa.

So ... they say a word to the wise is sufficient so leh we try a t'ing here.

Friends, Milanese, designers - lend me your ears!

Jourdan Dunn is NOT the only black model in the world.

It is ok to use more than one black model at a time. It will not scare anyone. In fact, it could do great things for you. (see Italian Vogue, all black).


All black women and/or black models do not look alike. (Androgynous Eastern European models now... that's another story). We have diverse complexions, features and even hair types - not that I am so hopeful as to see a model rocking dreads anytime soon - but it's an idea!

 

 

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Et tu Milan Fashion Week?

Surely you would imagine that after all the talk in the last year about the lack of colour on the runways, and with Italian Vogue putting out their big-selling 'all black' issue this summer, that the runways for Milan Fashion Week would be more colourful.

Alas ... not.

According to our friends at Shophound who have been following the shows in Milan (though not actually there covering as they did for NY Fashion Week), the numbers have been disappointing.





The runways at Milan Fashion Week looked kinda like this. See the one black spot?



Bottega Veneta led the way with a 17% 'diversity quotient' consisting of four black models and one Asian out of 28 total models.

After that, it's all single-digit DQs. Depressing.

Way behind, was D&G, with four models of colour - three black models and one South Asian model out of 51 models in total, to have a DQ of 8.9 %.

DSquared had a DQ of 9.6% for having 2 models of colour - one black, one Asian, out of 21 models.

Gucci, which just signed Rihanna to be their spokesperson in their first ever UNICEF campaign, had a measly DQ of 4 % which represented a whopping one model of colour, out of 25.

It infuriates me how so many of these luxury brands are willing to ride on the popularity and influence of black celebrities and of hip-hop culture in particular which has glorified and glamorised them but then people of colour are not good enough for their campaigns. We market them and push them but there is hardly any reciprocity and it's not right.

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