Naomi has brought the issue in the past .... a pity that because of her ' excentric ' temper it does seem to undermine the seriousness of her message .... somehow !
What I indeed find interesting is her idea of starting her own model agency in Kenya , therefore doing something about it herself .... that is a very positive action and that is surely bound to have more direct effect giving her powerful position when it comes to having total media attention ... super !

Naomi has brought the issue in the past .... a pity that because of her ' excentric ' sagas it does seem to undermine the seriousness of her message .... somehow !
What I indeed find interesting is her idea of starting her own model agency in Kenia , therefore doing something about it herself .... that is a very positive action and that is surely bound to have more direct effect giving her powerful position when it comes to having total media attention ... super !

Life & style
Fashion
Naomi Campbell fights racism in fashion
Hannah Pool
The Guardian, Wednesday August 22 2007
Article history
"Black models are being sidelined by major modelling agencies," Naomi Campbell told Kenyan journalists earlier this week. "It's a pity that people don't appreciate black beauty." Campbell, who also complained that she is rarely featured on the cover of British Vogue, is now thinking of opening her own modelling agency in Kenya in an attempt to redress the balance.

She is, of course, not saying anything new. "Racism in fashion industry" is about as surprising a headline as "Pete Doherty arrested". But while she has never been the most likable supermodel around, Campbell is to be congratulated for the fact that throughout her career she has never shied away from talking about the issue.

"There is prejudice. It is a problem and I can't go along any more with brushing it under the carpet," said Streatham's most famous export as far back as 1997. "This business is about selling, and blonde and blue-eyed girls are what sells." Saying this sort of stuff takes guts, no matter who you are; Campbell is not so much biting the hand that feeds as ripping it off at the wrist.

For the record, Campbell has appeared on a total of eight Vogue covers, which is approximately eight more than most of us, but notably less than Kate Moss (a whopping 24). Moss-mania aside, a more realistic comparison might be with Linda Evangelista or Gisele Bündchen (13 and 12 covers respectively) - and while, in Vogue cover terms, she is roughly in the same ball park, it is unlikely that Bündchen or Evangelista has ever been turned down for a job because the designer didn't want a white model.

Of course, Vogue is not the only barometer of the fashion industry's treatment of black women, and Campbell is not the only black model to have faced racism.

It may seem as though things have moved on considerably since the 70s when Iman, the first black supermodel, was pitched as an illiterate Somali goatherd (she was in fact a middle-class multilingual university student), but the fact is that you can still count the number of prominent black models on one hand. While publishers remain convinced that white women won't buy a magazine with a black woman on the cover, it is going to take more than a model with a reputation for having a bit of a temper to change their minds.

I have just been shown the September copy of Vogue. I counted through roughly 300 pages of advertising and found 3 ads with black models in them, and in two of them they were sharing the ad with white models.
So there is in fact was the grand total of 1 ad in the whole of the new seasons advertising that chose just to use a black model.
I read Sarah Mowers article in the paper at the weekend proclaiming the Italian Vogue issue to be a "watershed" moment . Well no evidence of that in this seasons advertising.
Incidentally I also went through all the editorial stories and found no black models used.

There's a lot of blame to go around:

1. Blame the Editors. On the subject of magazines not putting non-white models on the cover because they claim it leads to fewer sales. Okay, let's pretend that's a legitimate reason. Now, what prevents them from using none-white models INSIDE the magazine? Every month, all the Vogues, Ws, Elles and even the non-commercial fashion magazines have four or more editorial stories inside each magazine. What percentage of the editorials feature non-white models? Month after month, only white models are used both on the cover and inside the magazine. The dearth of non-white models inside magazines proves that money isn't the issue.

2. Blame the designers: Designers want to please editors. If it's a whites-only policy, that's who they'll book for their shows and campaigns. For all the their vaunted rebellious attitudes and "creativity," designers are conformists. If Prada and Raf Simons have all-white cabines, they will too. Editors love Prada and Raf Simons. If a less successful designer copies who they book, maybe some of their coolness factor will rub off on them. It's New York designers who are the worst. They live and work in a city that is 50% non-white, and they're always claiming to be inspired by the city, but you'd never know it from who they book.

3. Blame non-white designers for not supporting their own. This is a tricky issue. Think of the MANY New York designers who are of Asian origin. How many Asian models do they use? Very few. One or two a show. Some of this is from fear of being seen as an Asian label. Of course, no one worries about an only-white cast leading to a perception that it's a white label.

If non-white designers don't pave they way by using more non-white models, who will? Yves is dead. Tom Ford isn't a big label (yet--btw the man is a champ on this issue, a real iconoclast--from his championing of Kiara to Liya and now the White Patchouli campaign--and how sad is it that using black models makes one an iconoclast in 2008?) Prada and Raf Simons and Karl who lately gets his cues from Hedi are resolute in their preference for all white models.

A couple of years ago, Francisco Costa, the creative director of Calvin Klein (who is of Brazilian origin), had a show where the house put out a press release that one of the central themes of the collection was "purity." How did this translate into which models were booked? They ONLY booked white models with blonde hair! I'm not kidding. And he's considered one of the more cerebral designers. Honestly, if someone Brazilian doesn't realize what message you are sending when you equate "purity" with white blondes, there doesn't appear to be a lot of hope. (I recall the wonderful Cathy Horyn calling him on that.)

4. Don't blame all advertisers. The high fashion ads are only a portion of what makes a magazine. In the U.S., mainstream advertisers have long embraced using black models. The reason? It makes financial sense for them to do so. Cover Girl, L'Oreal, Revlon and lots of other companies regularly use non-white models and spokesmodels, and they have for years. Can you imagine a typical editor having the ability to picture Queen Latifah in a beauty story? Of course not. But Cover Girl did and they're doing well because of it.

The blog Jezebel.com has a monthly feature where they tally the number of non-white models in the editorials versus the ads, and month after month, it's whites-only in the editorials and a number of non-whites in the ads.

Okay, I'm done. Sorry for the screed. It is galling that this is an issue in 2008. The anger many feel is justifiable. Nick really got it.

I am also wondering are ASIAN designers and fashion editors .... wherever they are in New York , Tokyo, New Delhi or Beijing prepare to promote Black models ? ... I get this feeling that it is becoming a total joke and cliche that racism exist only among the so called ' whites' .... but it is very much accepted that Japan a key market for high fashion that when it comes to this issue no one dares, again, to say absolutely NOTHING ! ... a bit hypocritical in a way !