Discrimination on the catwalks?

PARIS (AFP) — Though America stands poised for its first black president in history, the fashion world descending on Paris for this week's couture-show summit will be treated yet again to a "white-out" on the catwalks. After the emergence 30 years back of black faces on catwalks -- thanks largely to recently demised French couture giant Yves Saint Laurent -- fashion in the first decade of the 21st century has turned relentlessly white."I asked the modelling agency for black girls for our next show but there simply aren't any," said Mario Lefranc, half of the Lefranc-Ferrant designer duo, one of 40-odd labels presenting couture collections in Paris over the coming week."I'm sick of blonde Russian girls," he told AFP. "Clearly the trend now is all for blue-eyed blondes."And at Jean-Paul Gaultier's, a designer renowned for using models of all ages, sizes, and origins, one assistant said: "It's really very difficult at the moment. There are no black models on the market, the agencies have none."In the last few years, she added, "there's been an invasion of girls from Eastern Europe, of their type of beauty."Former model Mounia, now 40-something and born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, was one of the first top black models to hit high fashion those few decades ago, along with by Iman, Katousha, Naomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland.Bound to make waves in the weeks and months to come, July's issue of Vogue Italia is to feature more than 100 pages, including the cover, of images of black women -- models as well as successful black women in arts and entertainment. The pictures were taken by influential US photographer Steven Meisel, known for his 1992 volume with Madonna.SOURCE: AFP