London Fashion week: Black skin is the new Black

In a dog-eat-dog industry where black models struggle to find work, Philip Treacy's bold and mesmerising catwalk show featuring only black models is sensational progress

For a few brief hours toward the end of London’s glamorous Fashion week, Black literally was the new Black.

Fashion designer and milliner to the stars, Phillip Treacy lit up the cat walk with a cast of all Black models - 25 models including Leomie Anderson, Betty Adewole and Jourdan Dunn.

Not only was this a spectacular show with Treacy’s hats which instantly becomes works of art in their own right, but the imagery of exquisite craftsmanship and Nubian beauty has rocked the industry to its core.

This bold beautiful statement confronts the fashion world’s rigidity to what is beautiful.

Carole White, founder of Premier Model Management said,

I thought it was a really beautiful show and really welcome that he decided to use all Black models. It’s always difficult for Black girls to get work in shows… you can usually count them on one hand.

The fashion magazine Vogue attempted a similar feat by issuing all-Black models for its edition. It instantly became a best seller and one of the proudest moments in the magazine’s history. But as one insider Catherine Kallon puts it:

'these are great jaw dropping moments, but without consistency we are never going to see Black beauty as the norm.’

Kallon is right, of course. Until Black men and women are given the chance to become fashion writers, editors, designers and entrepreneurs, we are spoon fed a very limited diet of what is beauty.

'The black supermodels of the 1980s like Naomi Campbell and Iman have certainly made it a lot easier for the new generation but it is still harder to book black models. 

'They will be used in spring/summer shows, when there is a tribal theme, but it is much harder in autumn/winter.'

The groundbreaking event, the Irish hat designer's first London show in ten years, was dedicated to Treacy's former muse Isabella Blow, who committed suicide in 2007, and Michael Jackson.

The absence of black models on fashion magazines covers and the runway is an issue which has provoked much debate over the years.

In 2008, Italian Vogue famously featured only black models in its July issue to highlight the subject. 

The pictures were taken by New-York based photographer Steven Meisel.

'I thought, it's ridiculous, this discrimination. It's so crazy to live in such a narrow, narrow place. Age, weight, sexuality, race - every kind of prejudice,' he told the New York Times. 

Meisel blamed designers, magazine editors and advertisers for the decline in the numbers of black women in fashion shows. 

The magazine published a second all-black editorial in 2011.

On an encouraging note, I know for a fact that Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been exploring ways in which she can bring the power players of the industry together to bring about positive change.

Whilst Campbell and co quietly put together a plan to move the industry to a better place, let's saviour Treacy’s show as one of the highlights of London Fashion week.