This African Model Re-Created Famous Campaigns to Push for More Diversity in Fashion
It's no secret the fashion industry has a habit of treating tokenism as the norm, by using only one person of colour in a campaign or show and calling this 'diversity' - but you can really just call it #FashionSoWhite.
27-year-old model, medical student and fashion blogger, Deddeh Howard, has experienced this infuriating disregard for women of colour as she found it difficult to book modelling campaigns, revealing to BuzzFeed; "Agencies would often tell me, ‘We like your look but there’s a black girl already’."
This spurred the Liberian-born but LA-based model to create her latest photo series, Black Mirror with the help of her boyfriend, photographer Raffael Dickreuter, and tackle the racial bias in the industry - by metaphorically holding a 'Black Mirror' to the fashion industry and recreating famous campaigns from Dolce & Gabbana to Gucci and Chanel.
The photo series sends a message to the biased industry that women of colour, especially black models, are as talented and beautiful as any others and should be giving more opportunities to grace magazine covers and be the faces of top campaigns.
It's no secret the fashion industry has a habit of treating tokenism as the norm, by using only one person of colour in a campaign or show and calling this 'diversity' - but you can really just call it #FashionSoWhite.
27-year-old model, medical student and fashion blogger, Deddeh Howard, has experienced this infuriating disregard for women of colour as she found it difficult to book modelling campaigns, revealing to BuzzFeed; "Agencies would often tell me, ‘We like your look but there’s a black girl already’."
This spurred the Liberian-born but LA-based model to create her latest photo series, Black Mirror with the help of her boyfriend, photographer Raffael Dickreuter, and tackle the racial bias in the industry - by metaphorically holding a 'Black Mirror' to the fashion industry and recreating famous campaigns from Dolce & Gabbana to Gucci and Chanel.
The photo series sends a message to the biased industry that women of colour, especially black models, are as talented and beautiful as any others and should be giving more opportunities to grace magazine covers and be the faces of top campaigns.
Writing a caption on the Calvin Klein campaign she recreated, Deddeh said:
“What do you mean you already have two to five black models that looks like me? Did you say the same thing to the 50 to 100 white models you already have?
“If Kendall Jenner can do it, so can me or any other race! Here is my proof, so open your eyes and see that fashion is not black or white! Life is not black or white.
“I’m just like her.”
Howard's photo series took nearly 3 months to make as she and Dickreuter said they worked hard to make their faux campaigns match the real campaigns as accurately as possible - showing that people of colour could look just as good in these campaigns if they were just given a shot.
Howard's photo series took nearly 3 months to make as she and Dickreuter said they worked hard to make their faux campaigns match the real campaigns as accurately as possible - showing that people of colour could look just as good in these campaigns if they were just given a shot.
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