PARIS: Though America stands poised for its first black president in history, the fashion world descending on Paris for this week’s couture-show summit will be treated yet again to a “white out” on the catwalks.

After the emergence 30 years back of black faces on catwalks thanks largely to the late French couture giant Yves Saint Laurent fashion in the first decade of the 21st Century has turned relentlessly white.

“I asked the modelling agency for black girls for our next show but there simply aren’t any,” said Mario Lefranc, half of the Lefranc-Ferrant designer duo, one of 40-odd labels presenting couture collections in Paris over the coming week.

“I’m sick of blonde Russian girls,” he said. “Clearly the trend now is all for blue-eyed blondes.” And at Jean-Paul Gaultier’s, a designer renowned for using models of all ages, sizes and origins, one assistant said: “It’s really very difficult at the moment. There are no black models on the market, the agencies have none.” In the last few years, she added, “there’s been an invasion of girls from Eastern Europe, of their type of beauty”.

Former model Mounia, now 40-something and born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, was one of the first black models to hit high fashion, along with Iman, Katousha, Naomi Campbell, Jourdan Dunn, Alek Wek and Pat Cleveland.

An aspiring air hostess discovered by Hubert de Givenchy, then propelled onto the catwalk by Saint Laurent, she acted as the face of YSL for some 15 years from 1985 onwards.

“He was inspired by the colour of my skin,” said Mounia. “I was his black model, his first black muse.”

“I’ve noticed there are many fewer black models on the catwalks today and I think it’s a pity particularly when you look around at what is going on worldwide, at how society has evolved, at what is going on in America.” Fashion has long been said to reflect changes in the air, and Barack Obama’s rising star was one of the reasons behind a momentous decision in the rarefied world of style by Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani to make a statement against discrimination in its forthcoming issue.

AN EVENT TO REMEMBER: Bound to make waves in the weeks and months to come, July’s issue of Vogue Italia is to feature more than 100 pages, including the cover, of images of black women models as well as successful black women in arts and entertainment.

The pictures were taken by influential US photographer Steven Meisel, known for his 1992 volume with Madonna.

“Franca doesn’t realise what she’s done for people of colour,” Campbell was quoted as saying of Vogue’s “A Black Issue” in The New York Times. “It reminds me of Yves (Saint Laurent) using all the black models.” London’s Daily Telegraph noted that “this will be an event to remember”.As advertisers increasingly beam images of a multi-ethnic global society around the world, the whitewash on the catwalks appears absurdly out of touch with reality.

So what has happened since YSL, Paco Rabanne or Azzedine Alaoa put black models on the front pages?

White domination on the catwalks in the 1950s and early 1960s reflected the times, said fashion historian Lydia Kamitsis.

“Seeing black girls on covers and catwalks in the mid-60s caused a real scandal,” she said.

—AFP