BRAZIL: Black rights campaigners criticize labels at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week for casting a small number of dark-skinned models and demand 20 percent quotas for future shows

Record ID: 197489

  • Title: BRAZIL: Black rights campaigners criticize labels at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week for casting a small number of dark-skinned models and demand 20 percent quotas for future shows
  • Date: 20th June 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF MODELS WALKING IN LINE BY THE END OF PARADE
  • Embargoed: 5th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Brazil, Brazil
  • Country: Brazil
  • Topics: Arts
  • Reuters ID: LVA2908E49ZDO5GL2RM94G9QE63A
  • Story Text: Race activists in Brazil are slamming the designers in Sao Paulo Fashion Week that have left black models out of their shows and demanding a 20 percent quota for upcoming parades.
    A dearth of black models strutting the catwalks is a persistent issue in the fashion world and while the numbers have improved, campaigners say there are still too few.
    While over 50 percent of Brazil's population is black, only 28 of the 1,128 models booked for fashion week are of African descent, according to rights activists.
    At fashion shows, many labels share the same models, giving a few black models a disproportionate number of work which activists say limits opportunities for black models.
    At Sao Paulo's biannual fashion week, many designers use an average of two to three black models per show, according to Brazilian media. But several designers only used one and some had none among their casting of 15 to 28 models.
    Members of the black rights organization Educafro have filed lawsuits against the labels that failed to meet the ten percent quotas they had previously agreed to. Now they are demanding a ten percent increase so that there is a minimum number of dark-skinned models on fashion runways.
    Educafro representative Friar David Santos said Brazil had to portray its racial diversity on the catwalk.
    "We believe that Brazil has to show the world this great richness it has -- the Indians, the blacks… But our designers are insensitive and insist on selling to the world a Swedish-like Brazil, a Denmark-like Brazil; but we want them to show the true face of Brazil, a black, white and indigenous Brazil. Brazil is a country of diversity," he said.
    Twenty-one-year-old black model Ronaldo Martins said he was disappointed with the number of dark-skinned models in Brazilian shows. He said promoting racial equality on the runway would be a tough challenge.
    "I saw many parades that didn't have any (black models) or only one or two maximum. So we are trying to promote something that is challenging. It is difficult to take black models to fashion shows," he said.
    Designer Igor de Barros, who booked Martins for his show, said he was against racial quotas because designers should be free to choose which models best fit their clothes.
    "I don't see this as a problem. I think every designer makes choices according to their work. I think freedom of speech is something that everyone fights for and wishes to have and I think this should also count for each one to decide what matches their work best," he said.
    Barros' label V. Rom booked four black models for their male show, but other brands like Priscilla Darolt had none in their line-up.
    Even among the public watching the shows, blacks were not easily spotted.
    Chef and fashion lover Lucas Travesso said racial diversity should be up to designers only.
    "I think that as much as a designer can conceive a collection that has everything to do with black models, they should also have the right to choose white models only. This is diversity and we should have freedom to choose, be they good or bad choices," he said.
    Most Afro-Brazilians are still mired in poverty, living in downtrodden neighborhoods on the outskirts of big cities. They earn considerably less than white people, few graduate from high school and very few blacks have cracked the upper ranks of business.
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