. . . maybe it IS in their best financial interest. Don't the fashion and beauty industry profit from making women feel badly about themselves? Isn't the point to create an unreachable ideal so that women will keep buying more and more to obtain it? I'm not saying that women of color are mindless consumers who want to look like white women. I'm saying that all women are targeted in this way and white women (myself included) are prone to fall for this crap just as often. And anyway, it's just a thought.

There's also the possibility that high fashion designers just don't seen women of color as their market. I have no idea whether they're wrong or right, but I do know that statistically speaking, white women are much more likely to have money to blow on outrageously expensive clothing. Do we know where that $20 billion a year is going versus where all of the money that white women spend on apparel goes? It's still fucked up, and if women of color aren't buying these designers' clothing, they have no one to blame but themselves. But I also think that it's an interesting question.

Sorry this is slightly OT, but on a fashion/feministing note, Jessica is mentioned in the October issue of ELLE magazine. According to ELLE, she is "waggishly cool" and "gong-kicks" her subjects on Feministing. This was written in the context of providing advice for aspiring bloggers. It's actually a relatively feminist-heavy issue, what with a review of Susan Faludi's latest and an excerpt from Katha Pollitt.

I don't follow the fashion world too closely myself, but from what I have seen, it seems like the only companies actively marketing to women of color are "hip-hop" fashion labels, such as Baby Phat and Beyonce's new clothing line.

Re: Cara's comment: I think luxury goods labels must know that women of color are a huge market because so much of mainstream rap and hip-hop are centered around living large and buying the most expensive clothes, jewelry, and champagne. Perhaps Louis Vuitton, Gucci, et al. feel they get enough marketing from all the designer name-dropping done in mainstream hip-hop music. Those companies make the majority of their profits from perfume and accessories, which are just inexpensive enough that even lower income individuals can stretch beyond their means to purchase them as status symbols.

Cara makes a good point that high fashion is about depicting an unattainable fantasy. It has been interesting to me to see the co-optation of traditionally WASPy labels by hip-hop artists, as they represent the historically unattainable power and status that comes with being white and wealthy. I am sure fashion houses love the added profits from a growing non-white audience, but might feel they will alienate their longtime white aristocratic consumer base by directly courting any other type of customer. It seems like a balance between making as much money from as many people as possible, and maintaining the image of exclusivity.

Really?! I have that ELLE and I haven't seen that. Mind telling me the page? Huh.

Good point about the mainstream rap obsession with luxury goods, Caratronic (hey, that sounds like a robotic version of me!). From what I see, though, it seems that that market is made up of mostly men, and we're talking about the women's fashion industry. Unfortunately, for every commercially successful female musician (in the rap genre and all others), there are ten successful men. But since I'm not really into rap or fashion, I could certainly be wrong about how the culture markets to women.

I also know that there are certain brands that are marketed directly to black women and rap fans, like Apple Bottom. Not being into these things, I have no idea how much those clothes would cost, but they certainly don't have the high society vibe of Versace, etc.

erm, i think the hip-hop/urban scene is marketed equally to men and women.

Well to be fair, I wasn't talking about the "urban scene"-- I was talking about the extreme excess promoted by mainstream rappers. Though the two are often influenced by the other, I think that they are inarguably very different things, since most urban dwellers (or most people period) cannot afford huge diamond-encrusted chains and Cristal champagne, the two have to be different. And I said that I might be wrong about how such excess is marketed to women, too.

Just because you have light skin doesn't mean you aren't "of color". There are quite a few Latina and racially-mixed models who happen to be fair-skinned; Gisele Bündchen and Cintia Dicker are just two examples. I do sympathize with women of color who do not looks like the models of color, however.

Excellent point, BlurpleBerry. The sad thing is, though, that since many people do not recognize fair-skinned, non-caucasian women as women of color, that is precisely why they're marketable. If Gisele had darker skin, would still be such a star? Would she have ever been "discovered?" I would like to think so, but it's hard to say. I also think that intent is a big part, and I highly doubt that designers think "we need women of color. Let's get Gisele!" No, they would probably think "let's get Tyra or Naomi!" which is just as bad, because a single black woman in your show does not make it diverse, and too often that's what such attempts come down to.

Jessica--you are on page 385 in the upper left column. Cheers!

I think this has a lot to do with the 'aspirational' nature of fashion. Along the lines of what Cara said above about creating an unreachable idea, fashion has never been and likely never will be reflective of what people actually look like. (Because if people were fashionable as they were, why would they need to spend so much money on looking 'better'?) What I think is more troubling is considering fashion as the idea of what people want to look like - apparently we all want to be stick thin blond women covered in fur and diamonds and candy colored satin, at least this season.

I think telling women of color that they should want to look like white women is a whole lot easier than the other way around. So either the models of color look pretty anglo (Gisele, above), or they look 'exotic', which is apparently the only kind of woman of color a white woman would ever want to be.

As for 'urban' fashion - most of the lines aimed at women of color are at much lower price points (department stores, juniors sections) than traditional fashion houses. Sean John is getting more expensive, but mainly in terms of suiting for men. There's much less representation at the "bridge line" price point (think Marc by Marc Jacobs, D&G, etc), even less at "ready to wear" (Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana), and none at couture levels. This is notable because couture is the least practical, most aspirational level of fashion, that creates the ideas and images that go down to lower levels.

I find it sort of odd that the theme of diversity in fashion is almost always focusing on models. Sure, they're very visual but they're also the least powerful and only one part of the industry.

I want to read a piece of investigative fashion journalism (such things exist, no?) that examines the rest of the business, too. How many designers of colour are there? How successful are they, relatively? What about the magazine side, or the marketing? But especially the designers. I can only think of Anna Sui right now, and I'm not sure there are any other top designers of colour.

Off the top of my head -- Vera Wang. Vivienne Tam. Sabyasachi Mukherjee. And on the journalism side, Givhan, of course.

And FWIW, this isn't new to Givhan, either -- she's often alluded to the overwhelming whiteness of models in past columns, although I've never seen an entire column on the subject from her before.

Perhaps Louis Vuitton, Gucci, et al. feel they get enough marketing from all the designer name-dropping done in mainstream hip-hop music.

I don't think of the kind of women who buy designer or even high-end bridge wear are necessarily looking to hip-hop for fashion inspiration. I think for starters that they are older than the target market for hip-hop & "urban" lines (you need a certain amount of disposable income for this kind of stuff, and you also need a certain kind of class education).

And I can't believe that the fashion houses believe that either. I think it's much more likely that they market explicitly to an age-and-wealth class, and believe themselves to be quote-unquote "color blind".