Fashion Mavens Still Like Light Skin

Despite Italian Vogue's recent black issue, the international fashion world still prefers white skin. In a tidy piece of cultural synchronicity, last month saw both the arrival of the latest issue of Italian Vogue, which exclusively features black models, and the debut in earnest of Barack Obama's presidential campaign as the Democratic nominee. Race has been a singularly polarizing, and thus creatively compelling, issue for centuries, but Obama's emergence onto the national and international stage has brought the topic out from the shadows. Sadly, in the modelling industry, attitudes about race aren't nearly as progressive as they appear to be in the political world. Italian Vogue's initiative has prompted some industry dialogue about why black models remain marginalized, but the issue runs across the entire color spectrum,... [read full story]