The October 2009 issue of French Vogue has a 14-page spread of Lara Stone, a white model. In five of the pictures her skin is coloured dark brown. This comes on the heels of Madrid Fashion Week which used at least two blackface models in September.
Jezebel.com accused Vogue of “cultural insensitivity”. SOS Racisme in France said it was “tactless”.
Note that this was French Vogue, not Italian Vogue which had that all-black issue last year.
So was French Vogue being racist?
Maybe not:
- Stone also appeared in whiteface in the same spread: in two of the pictures her skin is coloured snow white.
- France does not have America’s history of black slaves and blackface entertainment.
- Even in America blackface was used to stereotype blacks and make them a laughingstock. That is not being done here.
- It is the whole Christ-in-piss thing to sell more magazines. Vogue’s sales are falling. They do stuff like this to get people talking and presumably sell more magazines. In one past issue they showed two women kissing with blood coming out of their mouths.
Maybe so:
- Not a single black model appears in the issue. Unfortunately that is not uncommon. Huge parts of the fashion industry still seem to live in the 1950s.
- The photographer, Steven Klein, is American. Even if the French editor is “benevolently clueless” about blackface (which I doubt) he certainly is not.
- France has 2.5 million blacks. It used to rule large parts of Africa and had black slaves in the Caribbean.
- Stone appeared in dark skin before: in the February issue she had dark skin and was dressed to look like an African savage.
- If they simply wanted to make Stone look strange and striking to draw attention, why pick dark brown of all colours? What is wrong with pure black or even, you know, purple?
- If dark brown skin made the clothes look best, then why not use a black model?
- It seems like white people feel they can be more openly racist these days ever since Obama became president. This spread falls a little too well into that pattern.
What I think:
- Even apart from this, Vogue is a racist magazine. I mean, what? No black models at all? Come on. I am not saying Vogue is cross-burning Klan but they seem to have little regard for black people.
- The editor and photographer knew full well what they were doing. They knew it would be taken as blackface. Vogue is not some gardening magazine in Romania which truly might not know better.
- It was a cheap shot to sell magazines.
They are little better than Rush Limbaugh in that they do not regard blacks as part of their customer base and so if a bit of racism will get them more customers, why not?
One of the excuses fashion designers use for not using black models is that their looks draw attention away from the clothes. If that were true, then why is Lara Stone coloured dark brown?
See also:
Abagond 
I’m just so digusted I can’t even say anything!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike
France has a long and dirty history with slavery !!!! Remember that haiti was a french colony along with louisiana as well as french dependancies guadeloupe and martinque. They were as violent and vicious as everyone else in their involvement.
Sometimes i think America only rememebers it’s own history and makes it seem out of character with the rest of the world but all of europe almost without exception was involved in the slave trade, britain , portugal, spain, france, sweden, holland being the biggest beneficiaries. Italy and germany were not countries as such at the time and acted as separate kingdom states genoa in italy may have been the only part of italy involved but that is only what i have been taught. When people try and use that “they don’t have the same history et al” arguement it gets really tired really fast because in effect if you had lived your life in a strict theocracy and then you came to american saw a gay couple stoned and killed them, you couldn’t be excused on the basis that “you don’t have the same history or culture”
It excusion at it’s very worst.
LikeLike
MERCI BEAUCOUP LIFEISANNOYING,
I agree with every word you said.
Also I might add as Americans think they are the world,
They rarely know what happens overseas.
LikeLike
I do find the photo quite nice, when I first saw the pics I didn’t know she was a white girl painted in black but a real black woman.
And I agree with Aba,
that was a cheap shot to sell magazines.
Aba says:
It seems like white people feel they can be more openly racist these days ever since Obama became president.
I feel the same way.
LikeLike
why thanks nubiahbella!!
Please don’t swallow the crap that some people want you to swallow, that America has a unique history with race (NO IT DOES NOT!!) everywhere that has been colonised or was a colonial force has a history of racial strife.
Britain case in point, britain is not a single entity it is an amalgamum od several nations, England , wales and scotland , also Northern Ireland.
England colonised parts of wales in the early 11th century and slowly took it’s neighbours under the fold due to royal sucuession problems and it has in the past colonised whole swathes of northern france. they then moved onto Africa, various parts of “the America’s” as well as Asia. They used excuses of white supremacy and inferiority of non-whites to effectively kill murder subdue populations at will and now in those places the populations have often been left with pigmentocracies.
hope you post on pigmentocracies and there orgins in colonialism.
LikeLike
i was disgusted when i saw this and Australia did the same thing when it came to michael jackson. it seems they don’t care what really went on with racism back in america. why couldn’t they put a real black model? did they feel she wasn’t good enough and felt a white model should pose as a black woman? i guess racism will never die.
LikeLike
Lifeisannoying,
You didn’t get what I meant.
My point was that Blacks everywhere(not only in America) had a painful past.
Having a big family in Africa, from Cape Verde to Cameroon, I can still the damage due of colonialism.
Also being French citizen, I know how hard things are when u are non-white.
France is far from being immune against racism is quiet the opposite.
LikeLike
Ugh. It’s gross. If they were going to be racist they could have at least used a good-looking model. She looks like a man.
LikeLike
French Vogue knowingly did this to create a stir. Any publicity is good publicity for them. It’s stupid, but that’s what they wanted and that’s what they received.
LikeLike
y are her legs spread like that in black face?
LikeLike
actually 4get it, she’ like that in alot of pictures
LikeLike
The photos look stupid, plain and simple. The photographer and the editor should be fired to trying to pass this hot mess as art.
LikeLike
What is happening in the fashion industry that they cannot find Black models? I mean how many Black models are out there who need work? Couldn’t they at least call Alek Wek or Naomi Campbell??!!
Or photograph one of the Black chic women who you can easily see in Paris.
LikeLike
That’s true. You could open your studio door in Paris, grab a random passing BW, and she’d be MUCH better looking than her. Definitely.
LikeLike
This is racist and disgusting! Aba is right, there’s a backlash against Blacks, especially at this time period. Racists come right out because USA elected our first Black/Biracial president and they are resentful and are taking their resentment out on Black folk, whether blatant as hate crimes against Black people or the use of Blackface in mainstream media.
The Obama Presidency brings out the beast in many people around the world, not just the USA. It’s time for people to think about this and become proactive in fighting against racism around the world.
La Reyna
LikeLike
i just think people think because there is barack is in office, now they can do the things they always wanted as it pertains to black people becuz they can hide behind the facade of it being an equal society cuz of obama and we all know its not
LikeLike
stupid plublicity stunt they knew full well what they were doin I agree completly with Abagond said.
Nowaday’s people are getting so “brave” and are saying and do more and more blantantly racist things
LikeLike
omg. lead pipe. what a way with words. lol 🙂
LikeLike
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
LikeLike
i can definitely say some whites are more openly racist now that obama’s president. i have gotten into 2 separate confrontations with random white people since he got elected. and i am a pretty quiet non confrontational person and both times they went out of their way to provoke/threaten me. white folk need to calm the hell down, some of you are okay but man get your cousins or something because that is really not cool! i dont know where some of them get their false sense of superiority from but they need to wake up, the world is changing and they are losing their power.
LikeLike
Isn’t Lara Stone the same white model who was trying to play pit party because she was considered to be too fat on the runway? Now she takes a modeling gig away from starving Black models and I’m suppose to feel sorry for her because she could either lose weight or get into full figure modeling? smh
LikeLike
I agree with Dani about the starving Black model line. You hear White models complain that they don’t get work even though they are blonde with blue eyes so Black models shouldn’t complain. I’m thinking, what the…? Really? Open any magazine, flip to any channel, and you see most female images are of blondes, its saturation that’s getting in their way, not so for Black models. This is why I find these photos to be, for lack of a better word, stupid.
LikeLike
And the beat goes on…….. It NEVER ends.
LikeLike
I hope no one finds this garbage appealling because its downright disrespectful.And i bet there are plenty white folk thinking this mess is funny..I find it amusing how whites never want to compliment a black women on how beautiful they KNOW we are but they copy and imitate us on a regular basis.
“Designers reasons for not using black models, because their looks draw away from the clothes.”
We cant help it we look better than white women…
LikeLike
Well, it happened again, but not in Vogue.
LikeLike