Almost 70
years after the label’s founding, it has hired the American pop star as the
first black model to front one of its campaigns. That such an appointment took
so long is shameful.
Beverly
Johnson, the supermodel who made history by being Vogue’s first
black cover model in 1974, said it best—and she did so with a dry laugh.
On
the news that Rihanna was about to become the first black model to front a
Christian Dior campaign, Johnson told The Daily Beast: “I’m elated. I guess
it’s better late than never. Welcome to the 21st century.”
While
the appointment is to be celebrated, that it has taken this long for Rihanna to
make this particular slice of history is shocking, and it is a shaming comment
on the racism still prevalent within the fashion world. Dior, after all, was
founded on December 16, 1946.
Almost
70 years later, the design house announced the 27-year-old pop star would front
the label’s “Secret Garden” campaign this spring.
With
film and photography shot by Steven Klein at Versailles, according to WWD, the campaign will feature models
apparently floating ethereally around the French palace in Dior’s gowns.
Johnson
told The Daily Beast: “It’s fantastic. I love Dior, and Rihanna is very much
one of my style icons. I’m happy they got there in the end.”
The
International Business Times reported that Rihanna
would also become the face of the “J’adore Dior” campaign, replacing Charlize
Theron. Rihanna has apparently been filmed for the campaign in a sparkly silver
sequin dress in Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors.
“I
adore her style,” Johnson said of Rihanna. “She loves fashion, she’s unafraid.
She uses her imagination, which is something we should all strive to do.”
The
Dior appointment continues a successful March for the singer. Rihanna was last
week named the most streamed female artist in the world.
But
given it is 2015, what does Rihanna’s appointment say about fashion’s own
evolution? There are still far fewer models of color than white on the runway
during Fashion Weeks, and the presence of black models on the cover of fashion
magazines—or lack of them—is still a cause for comment over 40 years after
Johnson’s historic Vogue cover.
It
was, sadly, “news” that Jourdan
Dunn became—in February—the first solo black model to feature on the cover
of British Vogue in 12 years.
When I interviewed Chanel Iman for the London Times two years ago, I
asked if she had experienced racism. Iman, who at 16 was the youngest model to
appear on the cover of American Vogue and only the third black model
ever to have done so, told me: “Yeah, most definitely. A few times I got
excused by designers who told me, ‘We already found one black girl. We don’t
need you any more.’ I felt very discouraged. When someone tells you, ‘We don’t
want you because we already have one of your kind,’ it’s really sad.”
For the same
article, Bethann Hardison, a former model who has been lobbying the industry on
race-related issues, told me: “Things are improving. We have gone from no
ethnic minority models in shows to ‘one.’ We need to get past ‘one’ to more.
There’s a greater consciousness of Asia and China, so we see more of those
faces now. There needs to be a permanency [about] using black models. You still
see all-white shows in Europe and New York…And don’t give us an all-black
catwalk show. It doesn’t help us; it just puts us into a category.”
Real progress will
be measured when the catwalks, covers, and clothing ambassador appointments,
like Rihanna’s for Dior, cease being tokenistic, and when black models are
featured on an equal footing and presence with their white counterparts—and, on
magazine covers, without their skin being lightened.
“Unfortunately
racism is still part of the conversation, and fashion is no different than any
other industry,” Johnson told The Daily Beast. “It has to change if you’re
going to move forward. You don’t want to move backward. We live in a diverse
world. If you’re not participating at that level, you’re not part of the world.
People need to see people as people.”
As for the pace of
change, Johnson said, “Change is hard. As one generation moves out, another moves
in—new ideas, new blood. It’s the way the world works.”
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