American model Chanel Iman believes that the fashion industry is still racist, especially when it comes to the casting process. She comments that designers are only interested in filling a certain black quota and once they feel they have the required amount of black models, they won't make an allowance for any others. When she was asked if racism is still an issue, she opened up on the topic stating that this has happened to her in the past:
“Yeah, most definitely, a few times I got excused by designers who told me, ‘We already found one black girl. We don’t need you any more.’ I felt very discouraged. When someone tells you, ‘We don’t want you because we already have one of your kind,’ it’s really sad.”
However, Chanel remains optimsitc that the situation is improving and she is happy to see more Asian models on the catwalk, although she still feels there is a long way to go before black models will be chosen to walk the catwalk as fairly as white models:
“Things are improving. We have gone from no ethnic minority models in shows to ‘one’. We need to get past ‘one’ to more. There’s a greater consciousness of Asia and China, so we see more of those faces now. There needs to be a permanency [about] using black models. You still see all-white shows in Europe and New York… And don’t give us an all-black catwalk show. It doesn’t help us; it just puts us into a category.”
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| Chanel walks at Jason Wu's Autumn/Winter 2013 Show |
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