She is a trail-blazing supermodel, so you’re damn right you’ll hear her roar. As one of the veteran black models in the game, if anyone can stage a boycott of the fashion industry, it would be Iman, and that is exactly what she plans on doing.
Following the most recent decline of women of color on high fashion runways, with black models accounting for less than 6 percent of the faces featured in shows, the supermodel, businesswoman and philanthropist has proclaimed that she believes that designers have become more racially prejudiced since she started her career in the ’80s.
She explains the need for change, saying:
“It feels to me like the times need a real hard line drawn like in the Sixties, by saying if you don’t use black models, then we boycott. If you engage the social media, trust me, it will hurt them in their pockets. If you take it out there, they will feel the uproar. There is something terribly wrong. We have a President and a First Lady who are black. You would think things have changed, and then you realize that they have not. In fact, things have gone backwards.”
Those are strong words, and they needed to be spoken from a portal as iconic as Iman! She’s no longer on the runway full-time, but that doesn’t mean she blazed that trail for nothing. Younger black models like Jourdan Dunn and Chanel Iman have also both been overwhelmingly vocal about the racism they encounter in the industry.
Kudos to Iman for stepping up to the plate; Naomi, Beverly and Tyra, are you ladies also down with the get down?
SOURCE: Vogue
