Black Women are no longer here for The Fashion Industry's BS
Dear Fashion industry, we need to talk.
You have been doing women, particularly Black Women wrong for too long. As a Black Woman, I am here to serve you notice that we are no longer here for your foolery. You have appropriated our culture, refused to style even the most famous of us, refused to create clothes to fit us, refused to make beauty products to complement us, and even refused to respect our crowns when we are in fashion shows.
Let's just tackle a few pretty recent moments:
How about when designers adamantly refused to dress Leslie Jones for her upcoming red carpets, that is until Project Runway alum Chrisitian Siriano stepped up and slayed her entire look.
Look. At. Her. Y'all! A collective YAAAAAAASSSSSS is in order.
Now Siriano has earned mad respect from the bevy of the bearers of Black Girl Magic simply because we watched how he treated Jones with the class and style Jones had earned as a star, and the respect and dignity she deserved as a fellow human being. Now Siriano, an incredibly accomplished designer in his short time in the spotlight, has gone on to slay looks of many other curvy brown women, including our forever First Lady, Michelle Obama. Because once you get Black Women's loyalty, you certainly do keep it.
Or how about the model Londone Myers who recently called out the fashion industry for being unable to style Black hair for Paris Fashion Week. In a hyper lapse video, you can see stylists working vigorously on a stream of ever moving models while Londone is completely ignored.
It's 2017, y'all. You're going to tell me that professionally trained, supposedly the best of the best stylists that are so good they could make it to Paris, Milan, London, or New York to style for a fashion week, STILL cannot figure what to do with a CASTED model's natural hair? As she says "We all know if you tried that on a white model you'd be #canceled." You deserve this dragging.
Or what about Anastasia Beauty, one of the supposed best beauty brand around, being completely dragged for how they disrespected their Black model with dry looking awful colors that look dry and disrespectful on her skin tone. Like, is that even the same shade or applicator? And why would anyone think that looks good?
Moments like this make the beauty triumph that is Fenty Beauty (both as social proof to brands that had previously ignored women of darker shades AND a clarion call to these brands that they should have done better because any effort made now will only be in response to the intentional attention Fenty made to make sure there is beauty for all.) even more prolific and important.
Speaking of lips, my own personal "Oh no, baby, what is you doing?" moment, how about Vogue magazine being called out by BuzzFeed writers, Essence Grant and Patrice Peck for even writing on the subject of the best lips in modern history and only featuring a handful of women of color.
Cue eyeroll. So you included Rihanna and Sade, but what about Lauren Hill? Kerry Washington? Tyra Banks? Nina Simone? Oprah? The countless other Black and Brown beauties born around the world born with full lips over the course of humanity? Full lips have ALWAYS been great, and just because mainstream media has JUST caught on to a plushy pout doesn't make them worth noting because some non melanated human has a pair. Do better.
So what have we learned in today's foray:
1) The Fashion Industry frequently disrespects Black Women: Flat out refusing to style a model's hair during fashion week is worth getting fired, putting a non complementary shade of lipstick on a darker toned model (just to say you have a brown skin model in your product) is offensive, and you will get dragged and maybe cancelled if you do such foolishness.
2) Fashion appropriates Black Women's beauty features regularly (full lips? "mini buns"? "boxer braids"? That "loose afro" nonsense? When Vogue called big booties a trend? The dashiki being worn as a damn kaftan? I could go on but we don't have time.)
3) When you are respectful of our culture, our bodies, and our style, Black women not only notice, you gain our loyalty (This is not rocket science. Do right and you will be rewarded.)
What are your thoughts? Let's talk! Drop me a comment below.
You have been doing women, particularly Black Women wrong for too long. As a Black Woman, I am here to serve you notice that we are no longer here for your foolery. You have appropriated our culture, refused to style even the most famous of us, refused to create clothes to fit us, refused to make beauty products to complement us, and even refused to respect our crowns when we are in fashion shows.
Let's just tackle a few pretty recent moments:
 |
| Snatching wigs and edges |
How about when designers adamantly refused to dress Leslie Jones for her upcoming red carpets, that is until Project Runway alum Chrisitian Siriano stepped up and slayed her entire look.
Look. At. Her. Y'all! A collective YAAAAAAASSSSSS is in order.
Now Siriano has earned mad respect from the bevy of the bearers of Black Girl Magic simply because we watched how he treated Jones with the class and style Jones had earned as a star, and the respect and dignity she deserved as a fellow human being. Now Siriano, an incredibly accomplished designer in his short time in the spotlight, has gone on to slay looks of many other curvy brown women, including our forever First Lady, Michelle Obama. Because once you get Black Women's loyalty, you certainly do keep it.
Or how about the model Londone Myers who recently called out the fashion industry for being unable to style Black hair for Paris Fashion Week. In a hyper lapse video, you can see stylists working vigorously on a stream of ever moving models while Londone is completely ignored.
 |
| Essence Magazine |
It's 2017, y'all. You're going to tell me that professionally trained, supposedly the best of the best stylists that are so good they could make it to Paris, Milan, London, or New York to style for a fashion week, STILL cannot figure what to do with a CASTED model's natural hair? As she says "We all know if you tried that on a white model you'd be #canceled." You deserve this dragging.
Or what about Anastasia Beauty, one of the supposed best beauty brand around, being completely dragged for how they disrespected their Black model with dry looking awful colors that look dry and disrespectful on her skin tone. Like, is that even the same shade or applicator? And why would anyone think that looks good?
 |
| Anastasia Beauty |
Speaking of lips, my own personal "Oh no, baby, what is you doing?" moment, how about Vogue magazine being called out by BuzzFeed writers, Essence Grant and Patrice Peck for even writing on the subject of the best lips in modern history and only featuring a handful of women of color.
Cue eyeroll. So you included Rihanna and Sade, but what about Lauren Hill? Kerry Washington? Tyra Banks? Nina Simone? Oprah? The countless other Black and Brown beauties born around the world born with full lips over the course of humanity? Full lips have ALWAYS been great, and just because mainstream media has JUST caught on to a plushy pout doesn't make them worth noting because some non melanated human has a pair. Do better.
So what have we learned in today's foray:
1) The Fashion Industry frequently disrespects Black Women: Flat out refusing to style a model's hair during fashion week is worth getting fired, putting a non complementary shade of lipstick on a darker toned model (just to say you have a brown skin model in your product) is offensive, and you will get dragged and maybe cancelled if you do such foolishness.
2) Fashion appropriates Black Women's beauty features regularly (full lips? "mini buns"? "boxer braids"? That "loose afro" nonsense? When Vogue called big booties a trend? The dashiki being worn as a damn kaftan? I could go on but we don't have time.)
3) When you are respectful of our culture, our bodies, and our style, Black women not only notice, you gain our loyalty (This is not rocket science. Do right and you will be rewarded.)
What are your thoughts? Let's talk! Drop me a comment below.
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