13948: Super Sex Objects.

This series of photos was described as follows:

Los Angeles-based fashion photographer Viktorija Pashuta, famous for her creative viral photo shoots, comes up with a new series of high fashion images exclusively for BASIC Magazine, where she reimagines what famous AVENGERS MARVEL CHARACTERS would look like if they were female.

Sponsored by luxury suitcase company DESENO, the photographer transforms six famous superheroes like THOR, IRONMAN, HULK, CAPTAIN AMERICA, BLACK PANTHER and HAWKEYE into WOMEN SUPERHEROES. Using one-of-a-kind fashion pieces from European & US designers, she creates images that aim to empower all women around the world and inspire them to be strong, independent and almighty.

Okay, but not sure these images really save the day, so to speak. After all, the women are arguably objectified and hardly inspirational. Actual female heroes in the Marvel universe exhibit greater strength, independence and almightiness. Plus, some of the Marvel characters already have female versions. Finally, the lack of diversity is super insulting.

13881: Fashioning Diversity.

From Adweek…

Select World’s New Chief Creative Officer on Diversity in the Fashion Marketing Industry

Hans Dorsinville joins the agency after 15 years at Laird + Partners

By Erik Oster

Hans Dorsinville thinks the fashion industry and the agencies that help promote its biggest brands have only just begun to reflect the diverse makeup of the world.

“We still have a lot of work to do, but I think the only way we can do it is keep having the conviction that things need to change,” said Dorinsville, who joined independent agency Select World this week as its North American chief creative officer. “At the end of the day, we are here to represent brands that are for people. How do we do that if the people creating the work are not representative of society, and how do we do that if the people that we put in the actual advertising don’t represent the world that we live in?”

Dorsinville, who will co-lead the agency’s New York office with managing director Sabrina Yu, arrives at Select after 15 years with Laird + Partners, where he served as partner and executive creative director. This year, he was named to Adweek’s Creative 100, largely for his work on Lane Bryant’s #ImNoAngel and #ThisBodyIsMadeToShine body positivity campaigns.

“The truth of the matter is there are not that many agencies out there where there’s a black man and an Asian woman at the head of the agency,” he said, “and that, I think, sends a really great message out there that this is possible and that we’re going to be an agency … that is going to be able to represent a better cross section of consumers out there.”

Dorinsville told Adweek he was drawn to Select World as “an agency that has really been around awhile and has proven its worth and its expertise in this area of beauty and fashion.” Its client list currently includes Balenciaga, Davidoff, J.Lo, Seiko and Fekkai, among others.

“At Select World, we are global entrepreneurs working at the crossroads of creativity, technology and media, and we believe that the best and most breakthrough ideas are born out of diverse perspectives,” Yu said in a statement. “In addition, we wanted a creative and strategic leader who is equipped with international sensibility, attitude and style—an innovator who will develop our clients’ presence, relevance and prosperity. Hans embodies all of these talents and more. We believe he is the ideal choice to take Select World to the next level.”

13646: Alluring Commentary.

The April 2017 issue of Allure features 41 women of color discussing diversity. Wonder if there are more women of color in the fashion/modeling field versus the less-than-100 Black female executives in the advertising field.

13461: Black Mirror Reflects Bias.

From Campaign…

This black model reenacted fashion ads in a plea for diversity

By Ilyse Liffreing

Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, Dolce & Gabbana ads are gorgeously recreated by Debbeh Howard.

Flip through any mainstream fashion magazine and you’re sure to see more white models staring back at you than black, Asian or Native American faces. In fact, a shocking 78.2 percent of models in fashion print campaigns are white.

In a photo project called “Black Mirror,” 27-year-old model Deddeh Howard, who is black, commented on the lack of diversity in advertising by painstakingly recreating the poses and outfits of white models from classic ad campaigns. The reproductions are presented side-by-side with the original Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Chanel, Guess, David Yurman, Vivara and Louis Vuitton ads.

“We are bombarded everyday with flashy advertisements, billboards and television ads that try to inspire us to buy the products that are hitting the market,” wrote Howard in a post on her blog Secret of dd. “Very rarely do you ever see a black woman on them.”

The photo series is a collaboration with her boyfriend Raffael Dickreuter, a photographer and visual effects designer. She said “Black Mirror” (a play on the popular Netflix series) was inspired by the discrimination she felt.

“Agencies would often tell me, ‘We like your look but there’s a black girl already.’ It shouldn’t be limited to just one black girl; there can be more than one!” Howard told BuzzFeed. “It’s as if they [agencies] are ashamed to represent diversity. It’s very painful and it made me feel insecure and bad of myself.”

Howard said society needs more representations of black people in positive scenarios, like when Jasmine Tookes, a black Victoria’s Secret Angel, was chosen to wear the $3 million Fantasy Bra at the 2016 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. “Unfortunately we are rarely shown in a positive light in the media,” she wrote. Instead, she wrote, black people are more likely to be shown getting “shot or arrested.”

“I hope this project can help to bring awareness back to the positive side of black people,” she wrote.

Heidi Arthur, senior VP for campaigns at the Ad Council, appreciates Howard’s tenacity. “We love seeing the growing conversations around diversity happening across communities,” she wrote in an email. “The more we can talk about issues of diversity, the more personally aware we all become. This increased dialogue helps people understand and eradicate their own implicit biases.”

11448: Color On The Catwalk.

From The New York Daily News…

Models call out designers who only use white women in fashion shows, attempt to bring more diversity to runways

Supermodels Naomi Campbell and Iman are on a mission to bring more color to the runways. Through Balance Diversity, they call out designers who only put white women on the catwalk, and judging by last week’s fashion shows, their direct approach is working.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Supermodel Iman watched the runways like a hawk this Fashion Week — but she wasn’t looking at the clothes.

Iman joined with Naomi Campbell and veteran modeling agent Bethann Hardison for an unusual effort they are calling Balance Diversity to bring more black models to the runway, and they called out designers who whitewash their runways in the process.

By all indications, their open letter made a difference, with an uptick in diversity at the previews that ended last week. All the top designers presenting in New York used at least one black model, and some who previously had no black models used as many as seven this season.

“I’ve always said runways and photos are important to shape our young girls,” Iman said in an interview last week. “To see models of color on the runway is important to the self-esteem of our young girls. To see otherwise makes them feel like they can be ‘in or out.’”

What remains to be seen: Is the greater black presence on runways a lasting trend — or just more fast fashion? If black models fall out of favor next season like a short hemline, is that racist?

Balance Diversity is part activist group, part blog, part watchdog. They posed a catwalk challenge just before the seasonal style previews were to begin in New York.

“Eyes are on an industry that season after season watches fashion design houses consistently use of one or no models of color. No matter the intention, the result is racism,” said their open letter to the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

They called out by name some industry heavyweights, including Donna Karan, Proenza Schouler, The Row, Victoria Beckham and Calvin Klein — designers the group said used almost no black models in last February’s shows. The website Jezebel calculated that 82.7 percent of that season’s New York Fashion Week models were white, 9.1 percent were Asian, 6 percent were black and 2 percent Latina.

Iman and Hardison both note they aren’t calling the designers or the casting agents themselves racist — but they say defining one’s look with only white faces is a racist act. And they acknowledge that sometimes designers don’t see the models until a day or two before a show, but say they are nonetheless ultimately responsible.

Their letter went to the heads of the London, Milan and Paris fashion councils. The European designers, according to Iman, are bigger offenders. (She makes an exception for Tom Ford and Jean Paul Gaultier, who are the old-school types of designers who cast a model for her personality instead of trying to jam her into a particular seasonal mold.)

Some black models remain in hot demand. Campbell is the favorite, even in a jaded industry that typically likes the next big thing. The crowd at Diane von Furstenberg gave her bigger cheers than the designer. Joan Smalls and Jourdan Dunn also are consistently booked in top-tier shows.

But Iman said it has to be about more than a token or two black models, and it has to be about more than the established names. Without a turn on the runway, younger black models don’t get discovered and booked for advertising jobs.

Recently, shows moved toward a blonder, whiter cast, with a few minority model slots filled by Asians, she said, in an effort to appeal to the growing consumer economies in Asia. And even when big international brands put black models on their billboards, those same brands were holding out on the runway.

Designer Nanette Lepore, who was not targeted by Balance Diversity and whose runway featured a diverse group of models, said that she tries to cast a runway reflective of the world.

“The fashion world goes through these moments where people think that to get their message across they have to have one certain type of model,” she said. “At one point everyone had to look like Kate Moss. Or it’s Eastern European, or it’s Brazilian.”

Lepore also noted seeing more Asians, and, this season, more black models. “I think this will be the trend now,” she said optimistically.

Things did change in New York: Calvin Klein, for example, increased its use of black womenswear models from zero to five this season, while The Row, the label helmed by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, used seven dark-skinned models, according to Modelinia, a modeling industry website.

“This season will be more fun to count,” said Hardison. “Before it was a job. I think it’s going to be a pleasure this season.”

Calvin Klein creative director Francisco Costa said in a post-show interview that this collection, inspired by the patchwork of cultures in New York City, was a celebration of diversity. He said model diversity is something he thinks about.

“Casting for us — we take it very seriously,” Costa said. Of this season’s catwalk, he said, “The casting was very fantastic, it was very seamless … but it was very worldly and very multicultural.”

Reed Krakoff was also on the Balance Diversity list, but he said he thinks about the issue, too, and there was darker skin on his runway: “It’s important to represent a broad cross-section of different types of women. We’re really looking for that interesting mix.”

Most designers certainly weren’t pushing toward the microphones last week to talk about this issue. Most seemed as if they’d be happy to talk only about their clothes and inspiration. Rachel Zoe said discussions about diversity were like the ones about the age and weight of models. “It’s always going to be an issue. I don’t think there is a right and a wrong way,” Zoe said. “I just think it’s important that we keep everything mixed up and fair.

Zac Posen, however, brought up the issue of diversity during a backstage interview. He said he thinks his diverse runway makes his clothes look better, and it wins him the support of models, who have backed him even when retailers and editors didn’t.

He does use a casting director, but the final say is his. He’s looking for “physical beauty, star quality — who’s the next Naomi, Coco Rocha or Lindsey Wixson?” Posen said. “They all look different. It’s about who’ll look good in the clothes.”

Hardison and Iman did notice the improvement this season and are committed to making it last through the European shows this month and beyond to next season and next year.

“The public is very excited by the fact that this is happening. Not just black people care, people care, people who care about beautiful,” she said. “The activism has to remain.”

11437: White On Black Lack.

From The New York Daily News…

Supermodel Jessica White and diversity group call for greater black presence in fashion industry

By Marianne Garvey, Brian Niemietz and Lachlan Cartwright

Superstar model Jessica White sees one Fashion Week trend she’s not crazy about: the lack of black models.

While at DKNY’s 25th Birthday Bash, the 29-year-old beauty told Confidenti@l that African-Americans are struggling to be accepted as models and designers in the upper echelons of the fashion industry.

“Fashion is constantly changing from decade to decade, but I don’t see a change in how many black faces I see on the runway, and it’s something we should talk about because it’s a problem,” said White.

At the start of New York Fashion Week, former model and Diversity Coalition spokeswoman Bethann Hardison fired off a letter urging the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which oversees Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, to increase diversity on the runway.

“Eyes are on an industry that season after season watches design houses consistently use one or no models of color,” Hardison wrote.

The letter also called out a long list of designers and houses, including BCBG, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan, for not including enough black models. (BCBG Max Azria and Hervé Léger By Max Azria included several black models this week and Karan tapped famous faces Joan Smalls and Chanel Iman in her DKNY collection. Klein shows on Thursday.)

The missive didn’t go so far as to accuse anyone of bigotry, but did say, “No matter the intention, the result is racism.”

On Monday, Hardison went on ABC’s “Good Morning America” with black models Iman and Naomi Campbell to push for change.

“Nobody is calling any of these designers racist,” Iman said on the show. “The act itself is racism.”

None of the designers named answered our request for comment.

On Monday night, White, dressed in a sequined white dress, declined to speculate on why black models are hard to find on the runways or why only two black designers — Tracy Reese and B. Michael — are on Lincoln Center’s roster of almost 100 shows.

But she does say African-American fashionistas are influencing culture from the ground up.

“We’re creating trends, not just following them,” says White. “Right now there’s a hot trend called Ghetto Goth. Look at Rihanna. She’s doing it really well. It stems from the urban community.”

White hopes she’ll soon have a platform to discuss such topics on the BET network, where she’s in talks to host her own show.

11258: Keeping Abreast Of Jourdan Dunn.

From The Huffington Post…

Jourdan Dunn’s Boobs Get Her Cut From Dior Show

Plenty of top models walked the runway for the Christian Dior Couture show in Paris this morning, but Jourdan Dunn wasn’t among them. The model tweeted yesterday that she was cut from the lineup… because of her body:

Luckily, Dunn didn’t seem too upset about it. Not only does the 22-year-old maintain one of the busiest work schedules in the biz, but she also seems to understand that her chest is only too big according to the stringent (and often unrealistic) standards of the fashion industry.

Plus, as she tweeted immediately after, getting cut for her chest size is “minor”:

In an interview with The Edit in March, Dunn recalled being turned away from model castings because the client “didn’t want any more black girls” and also revealed the time a white makeup artist said she wouldn’t work on her face because she was black.

We suppose getting told your boobs are too big is better than straight-up racism… but it isn’t great, either. Just ask Filippa Hamilton, who was allegedly fired from Ralph Lauren for gaining weight. (“They said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore,” she told the press in 2010.) Or ask Ananda Marchildon, a “Holland’s Next Top Model” winner who was dropped from her agency when her hips got too big.

Just when you think the fashion industry is moving forward, a model reminds us just how far we still have to go.

11060: No Projects On The Runway.

BuzzFeed published, “5 Top Casting Directors Explain Why Runways Are So White.”

10412: Uncovering The Obvious.

Jezebel revealed photographs of Victoria’s Secret models undergo Photoshop® enhancements. Gasp! Thank God such investigative journalism is here to expose the shocking truth.

10107: Style Is Plentiful With Enninful.

From The New York Times…

An Image Maker Who Gets the Picture

By Jacob Bernstein

EDWARD ENNINFUL has a thing he likes to say on photo shoots: “I want her to look rich, rich, rich and chic, chic, chic.”

That’s certainly what he went for with Viola Davis in the February issue of W Magazine, where Mr. Enninful is the fashion and style director. At the time, Ms. Davis was up for an Oscar, playing a drab-looking maid in “The Help,” so Mr. Enninful decked her out in sexy Dolce & Gabbana and a diamond necklace from Camilla Dietz Bergeron.

But sometimes he plays against type. Kate Moss, for instance, has had enough tabloid scrapes to rival Paris Hilton, so Mr. Enninful cast her as a nun in a spread shot by Steven Klein. And for the magazine’s November art issue, Mr. Enninful collaborated with Steven Meisel on a series of fake ads that ran throughout the magazine, including one that featured a contestant from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” named Carmen Carrera hawking a fictitious fragrance called La Femme.

It generated considerable attention (“Isn’t W Magazine the cleverest in all the land?” the fashion blog Styleite wrote) and helped to cement Mr. Enninful’s ascent as one of the industry’s most influential image makers. He’s also among the few who is black.

“I like to play with contrast,” said Mr. Enninful, 40. “It’s about changing people’s perceptions of people.”

That’s an editorial luxury granted by his new perch, for which he left Vogue in April of last year. With a circulation of about 450,000 people, W has historically been more of an objet than magazine, making it possible to publish riskier photography. But by 2010, amid a brutal recession and competition from V and Interview, the future was looking bleak.

Condé Nast, which owns W, suddenly replaced its longtime editorial director, Patrick McCarthy, with Stefano Tonchi, who had previously been the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Still, ad pages showed little sign of rebounding.

Mr. Tonchi tapped Mr. Enninful to bring more visual excitement to magazine. “Very often you meet with stylists, they just think in terms of fashion shoots,” Mr. Tonchi said. “Edward thinks about what a magazine as a whole is about.”

In short order, W began showing signs of life. The magazine’s ad pages are up 16.7 percent this year through May, with 453 pages compared to 388 pages for the same period last year, according to Media Industry Newsletter. It was the biggest year-over-year gain among fashion titles.

Many give Mr. Enninful a fair share of the credit. “He is a big part of that success,” Mr. Tonchi said.

“He’s made it much more relevant,” said Ronnie Cooke Newhouse, a prominent advertising executive who has worked with Mr. Enninful on campaigns for Calvin Klein and Lanvin. (Ms. Newhouse is also the wife of Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast International.)

Among other things, Mr. Enninful conceptualized quirky, narrative-driven photography features that played off celebrities’ public personas. In November, the magazine put Nicki Minaj on the cover, dolled up as an 18th-century French courtesan. In April, it took Jessica Biel, the ultimate girl next door, and recreated her as a Raquel-Welch-like bombshell.

“Models are malleable creatures, but it’s a whole other ballgame with celebrities,” said Lynn Hirschberg, the magazine’s editor at large. “Edward brings something out in them that makes them not just people that are interesting for fashion, but more interesting versions of themselves.”

Mr. Enninful’s ability to handle the fragile egos of movie stars and to be edgy without alienating advertisers may have something to do with the time he spent in front of the camera himself.

In the late 1980s, while riding the London subway, the 16-year-old Mr. Enninful was spotted by the British stylist Simon Foxton, who scouted him to be a fashion model. Mr. Enninful’s mother, Grace, a seamstress from Ghana, was horrified at first, but relented. Over the next two years, Mr. Enninful shot editorials with the photographer Nick Knight and did music videos with Neneh Cherry.

But he realized he was never going to be a supermodel. At 18, he got a job as a fashion editor at i-D and became a fixture on London’s night-life scene. “The whole acid house scene was starting,” Mr. Enninful recalled. “We’d go down Portobello market and buy our clothes and customize them and try and outdo the next person.”

By 30, he was styling big campaigns and collaborating with Mr. Meisel at Italian Vogue. “Before that, I was a stylist. With Steven I became an editor,” Mr. Enninful said. “He taught me that fashion photographs could comment on things that were going on.”

One shoot Mr. Enninful and Mr. Meisel did was a spoof of the “They’re Just Like Us,” pages of Us Weekly. Another featured Linda Evangelista decked out in Chanel, her face wrapped in bandages, as if she’d just had plastic surgery.

“Edward understands immediately what the concept of a story is,” said Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue. “He’s committed to ideas.”

In 2005, Mr. Enninful got a call from Grace Coddington, asking him to become a contributing editor at American Vogue. Working at Vogue wasn’t always easy. “Did you see ‘The September Issue’? My story was in the bin,” Mr. Enninful said, referring to a scene in the documentary film where Anna Wintour summarily rejects an editorial he had styled.

“I learned that fashion was about more than fancy images,” Mr. Enninful said. “That there was a business side as well.”

7940: Asian-American Style Now In Fashion.

From The New York Times…

Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder

By Eric Wilson

The mood was set early at the American fashion awards ceremony at Lincoln Center in June, an event often likened to the Oscars of the fashion world, with a guest list that included celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow and almost every top designer.

In quick succession, three men were called to the stage to accept their awards as the best new designers of the year: Richard Chai for men’s wear, Jason Wu for women’s wear and Alexander Wang for accessories.

It was the first time that all three prizes given by the Council of Fashion Designers of America were awarded to designers who are Asian-American. That same night, the fashion council announced three scholarships, each for $25,000, won by student designers of Asian heritage.

“It’s so exciting,” said Mr. Wu, who became a household name not only in this country, but also in his native Taiwan, when his dress was selected by Michelle Obama for her husband’s inauguration. “Not too long ago, Donna Karan and Michael Kors were the young designers of America. Now there are a lot of firsts for all of us as Asian-American designers.”

Their ascent to the top tier of New York fashion represents an important demographic shift on Seventh Avenue. At the Fashion Week that begins here on Thursday, many of the most promising new designers are of Asian descent, a group that includes Mr. Wang and Mr. Wu; Thakoon Panichgul, one of the stars of the documentary “The September Issue,” about Vogue magazine; Prabal Gurung; Phillip Lim; and Derek Lam — names that are increasingly likely to represent the future of fashion.

Major design schools around the world have seen an influx of Asian-American and Asian-born students since the 1990s, partly through their own recruitment efforts in countries with rapidly developing fashion industries, like South Korea and Japan, and partly because of changing attitudes in those countries about fashion careers. At Parsons the New School for Design, roughly 70 percent of its international students enrolled in the school of fashion now come from Asia, according to school officials. At the Fashion Institute of Technology, 23 percent of the nearly 1,200 students now enrolled are either Asian or Asian-American.

“F.I.T. is a pretty diverse place, but this is the most obvious change we have seen,” said Joanne Arbuckle, the dean of its school of art and design. “It is remarkable when you compare it to many years ago. I don’t think we ever had these numbers of students from Asian countries or Asian-American students. And it is a growing population.”

The rise of Asian designers in America has actually come in several smaller waves, including one that marked the emergence of Anna Sui and Vera Wang in the 1980s. In the last few years, however, as a new generation of designers has asserted itself in New York, Asian-Americans have been at the forefront. In 1995, there were only about 10 Asian-American members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Today there are at least 35.

This has happened largely for the same reason that the New York fashion industry, through the ’80s, was populated most visibly by designers of Jewish heritage, like Calvin Klein, Ms. Karan, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Mr. Kors. Throughout the 20th century, generations of Jewish immigrants had created a thriving garment district in New York, first as laborers, then as factory owners, manufacturers, retailers and, eventually, as designers. Many of today’s Asian-American designers say they experienced a similar evolution from the factory to the catwalk, since some of their parents and grandparents were once involved in the production of clothes.

Read the full story here.