Victoria Beckham, formerly known as Posh Spice, has made the list of racist designers, as compiled by the supermodels Iman and Naomi Campbell.
The list also includes a veritable Who’s Who? of haute couture: Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Chanel, Armani, Gucci, Saint Laurent and Roberto Cavalli. Characteristically absent is John Galliano, who’s much given to video-documented anti-Semitic diatribes in bars.
In one such, he confused a group of Italians for Jews and ranted, “I love Hitler… People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be f***ing gassed.” For all such multiple if at times misdirected efforts, Galliano failed to make the rather long list of racist designers.
So what did Posh do to qualify? It had to be something more egregious than anything Galliano has perpetrated. Indeed it was: Mrs Beckham’s catwalk show appeared to involve only one non-white model, as defined by Iman and Campbell to whom Asian models don’t count as non-white.
In their open letter to the governing bodies of the fashion industries in New York, London, Paris and Milan the dynamic duo, assisted by the ex-model Bethann Hardison, wrote:
“Eyes are on an industry that season after season watches design houses consistently use one or no models of colour. No matter the intention, the result is racism.
“Not accepting another based on the colour of their skin is clearly beyond ‘aesthetic’ when it is consistent with the designer’s brand.”
Following ‘another’ with ‘their’ shows that the authors must have suffered from educational discrimination, which alone is these days accepted as the reason for functional illiteracy. Yet, considering that they’ve made millions in an industry dominated by white designers, their prima facie evidence in support of the case against professional discrimination is somewhat weak.
Their case for accusing Posh of racism is even weaker, and let’s face it: this is about the worst accusation that these days can be levelled at anyone – worse than murder, treason or even having sex without permission.
Realising this, Naomi was quick to offer an oral disclaimer: “We’re not calling them racist, we’re saying the act was racist.” It’s good to see that grammatically challenged persons are still capable of drawing such fine distinctions.
Not being privileged to know Mrs Beckham personally, I don’t know if she harbours any racial prejudices. What I do know is that the demographic composition of her catwalk crew proves nothing in that department, one way or the other.
‘The act’, Naomi, is neither racist nor aesthetic. It’s commercial.
Models in any marketing promotions, be that TV advertising, in-store posters or catwalks, are chosen on the basis of the market segment to which the promoted products are designed to appeal. Such decisions are made on research data, not personal idiosyncrasies.
Thus if John Galliano’s market research showed that his dresses appeal mostly to Jewish women, every one of his models would have a huge Star of David dangling between her half-bared breasts. Anti-Semitism would be strictly for after hours.
Every model agency has a thick book close at hand, matching the credibility of every model to every imaginable market segment. The subsequent choice is then made not by the couturier but by the calculator.
The cost of engaging a model (in the case of Iman and Naomi, the exorbitant cost), is weighed against her projected effect on the revenue. The more positive the balance, the greater the likelihood that the model will be used.
For my sins, I spent 30 years in the advertising industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Sensitivity to the sales potential of spokesmen and models is particularly fine-tuned on the American side, where there are many advertising agencies exclusively catering to the black and Hispanic markets.
No one has accused such agencies of complicity in racial discrimination. It’s understood that appealing to specialised markets requires specialised expertise. It’s further understood that some products appeal to some markets more than to others.
For example, once in New York I was writing copy for a female-hygiene product. Research and sales records showed that the market for the product was about 90% black.
Our first inclination was to choose a black model for all ads. However, further research told us not to be too hasty. Apparently, the likely buyers of the product were ready to accept a white woman as aspirational (don’t ask me why).
In the end, we chose a white model but had her so severely backlit that her skin colour was ambiguous. I can swear on a stack of Bibles that no racial, never mind racist, considerations played any part in any of the choices. It was nothing but cold-blooded commercialism.
Never having been involved in the fashion industry, I don’t know exactly how the houses choose their models. But I bet my annual income against Naomi’s daily fee (or the hourly profits of the Russian oligarch she’s cosy with) that the process isn’t dissimilar.
Of course racism these days is anything anyone says it is. If our millionaire models feel underprivileged, they are.
So Posh should watch her step. Since racism is not only decried but criminalised, one day she may find herself in the pokey for making business decisions.