A new Canadian documentary exposes racism in the fashion industry

By Simona Siad

The absence of Black models in ads, magazines and on runways is nothing new. But a Canadian-made short documentary called The Colour of Beauty, which recently premiered in Vancouver, sheds light on the bleak situation in a new way.

The film follows 24-year-old Jamaican-Canadian (and former Sway) model, Renee Thompson, as she goes on casting calls for New York’s Fashion Week and gives viewers a glimpse into the industry’s intersection of racism and definitions of beauty.

The film states that according to a 2008 survey, 87 per cent of New York Fashion Week models were white. “It gets to a point where you feel like you’re constantly justifying your worth,” says Thompson, in the film. “You can only take so much … constant rejection — or that fear that when you walk through that casting door, you’re going to be reminded, yet again, that you’re a Black girl. [But] quitting, to me, seems like you’re giving in.”

It is, however, the racially charged comments by modelling agents, like Justin Peery, and industry insiders in the film that are the most eye-opening: “When [a model] comes in with big eyes, big nose, big lips — things that are common traits in African-Americans — it doesn’t work.

But for those lucky few girls who have white girl features…” he trails off. It’s clear that those are the women who get booked. We also see Maurilio Carnino, a Fashion Week casting director and producer, state: “One time, one of my clients said, ‘I need a Black model, but she has to be like a white girl dipped in chocolate.’”

Thompson says hearing people speak this way about girls they are hiring for a job is a reality she deals with daily. “It’s not something that makes me question myself or my colour, but it’s an awareness that is very hard to swallow,” she says. “There are so many beautiful Black women who have graced the pages of magazines in the past.

But it seems like we are going back in time.” Exposing the mindset of the fashion industry seems to be a step in the right direction.

While Thompson didn’t make her goal of participating in New York Fashion Week, she is currently working to develop gender-specific workshops on self-esteem and beauty for women in juvenile detention centres. “I want girls to see someone positive who keeps trying and pushing,” she says, “I think it’s important for young girls of colour to know their worth, to have integrity.”