The pictures have been released and print and online headlines are rejoicing that Italian luxury brand, Prada has decided to use a black model—19-year-old Malaika Firth—as one of the faces of its Fall 2013 ad campaign. But frankly, we can’t help but wonder why the Kenya-born doe-eyed model’s skin, naturally a beautifully warm shade of chocolate, has been retouched to appear almost hauntingly white.
Despite what many would say is a blatant racial prejudice within the industry, Prada has earned the reputation for being one of the more intellectual and visionary brands, known to cast older male models and curvy women like Doutzen Kroes in its shows. Malaika Firth is the first black model since Naomi Campbell in 1994 to front a Prada campaign. So what does Prada casting a black model mean for fashion? Not much unless it decides to make a regular go of it. Earlier this year, Victoria’s Secret model, Chanel Iman, spoke to the Sunday Times Magazine about the industry’s poor showcasing of non-white models saying, “A few times I got excused by designers who told me, ‘We already found one black girl. We don’t need you anymore.’ I felt very discouraged. When someone tells you, ‘We don’t want you because we already have one of your kind,’ it’s really sad.”
Weekly, Style.com/Arabia features an edit of a model’s Instagram diary. Celebrating women and sometimes men of various nationalities and color, we aim to showcase a more contemporary vision of today’s standards of beauty.
