This is just fucking depressing.

We counted the number of spots in each of the 122 fall, 2010, shows held in New York that were covered by Style.com. [...] The numbers, as you can see, were not encouraging. Of 4,095 turns on the runway, only 662 went to models who weren’t white. That’s barely 16%.

Black models, at 323 bookings, were used the most of any single ethnic group, aside from whites. Asians were second, with 264. Latinas were a distant third, with 61 trips down the catwalk. Fourteen times during this fashion week, models of other races were used in a runway show.

(Jezebel)

I’ve been reading lots of entries across the blogosphere about VF’s “it girl” issue and here are a bunch of interesting ones:

Putting the “Fair” in Vanity Fair

“Pretty Young White Girls On OUR Covers:” Racists Come Out In Support Of Magazine Segregation

Vanity Fair’s “Hollywood It Girls” lacking some color

Young Hollywood is white, thin

Vanity Fair’s “New Hollywood” issue completely lacks diversity

I don’t think Vanity Fair editors set out with the goal, “Hmm, let’s see, who are the prettiest white girls we can feature on the cover of this issue?” I think that there actually is the issue of not having enough representation in Hollywood from girls of color. (Zoe Saldana and Frieda Pinto should’ve made this cover, though.) I think the problem here is less about VF editors wanting to sell whiteness over coloredness, and more that there is a severe lack of girls of color who make up the Hollywood circle (although the former is still a pretty prominent problem — just not relevant in this case).

And the thing is that Vanity Fair apologists shouldn’t be defensive about the backlash that VF gets from this issue, because it’s not fair to have to give an answer to, “Well which colored person would you put on the cover?” You’re right, there aren’t as many girls of color, but why aren’t there? There has to be a reason, and that reason absolutely is not that there are just no good colored actresses.

Mac’s default dictionary application sources from the Oxford American English Dictionary. I looked up “diaspora,” and it gave me this definition along with a sample sentence in italics, the bold emphasis being mine:

the dispersion of any people from their original homeland : the diaspora of boat people from Asia.

Say whaaaaaat?

Yes, now that I think about it, I would like to find those boat people ancestors of mine.

Head, meet desk. Face, meet palm.

When I read that f(x) was in Kenya shooting for a photobook, I knew there was bad crap coming our way.

And then I saw Krystal’s photo. Ugh, what the hell.

(more images here)

For their Spring issue, V Magazine is dedicated to showcasing plus-sized models in an effort to illustrate that oh em gee, plus-sized models are beautiful too!

Just like the first ever “All Black” issue of Italian Vogue from a while back, I liked the idea and I was interested in the final product that the respective companies were going to show its readers but I don’t think these issues are going to do shit in the grand scheme of things. Given the opportunity, I would love for there to be a first “All Asian” issue of any Vogue, but I think these attempts to try and “enlighten” the masses — by attempting to say that beauty is everywhere — are superficial and won’t make a dent at all in what truly matters.

Taking the example of the Black issue and the plus-sized issue of the magazines, it’s problematic that there needs to be a separation of Black models and plus-sized models from what we regularly see in magazines already. Like, they can only exist intermittently in all our regular issues, but unless we dedicate a whole “lookit me!” issue with only models of a certain look, they don’t fit into our standard beauty ideals. They have to appear in every single issue and without any head honcho editor pointing out in glee, “Look! Look at how progressive we are! Look at this Black model! And this plus-sized one! Oh and we’ll throw in an Asian one too!”

Bah.