French Vogue does Black Face? by Brew / October 16

Lara Stone in blackface. Photos by Steven Klein

Lara Stone in this month's French Vogue
2 comments / View Brew's Profile / Follow this Maroon on Twitter!
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Lara Stone in blackface. Photos by Steven Klein

Lara Stone in this month's French Vogue
2 comments / View Brew's Profile / Follow this Maroon on Twitter!
there’s controversy over this being done by a few publications, not just Vogue Fr, but also Allure and such. http://www.racialicious.com/2009/10/19/allures-faces-of-the-future-promotes-stereotypes-about-mixed-people/#comment-2044266
i tend to wonder if it’s just a matter of experimentation on the part of the Art Directors. for example, what if you wanted to dress a particular model in this outfit that highlighted their body/facial structure, but actually went better with a certain skin tone? You might bodypaint to see how it played out.
the difference is that the editors aren’t intentionally blackfacing (or are they implicitly, no matter what?).
why is it that blue, or even multicolored, body painting, as a layer of image creation, is acceptable, but black/brown is not? [rhetorical] obviously the answer is that the black/brown actually coincides with a preexisting social stigma.
to me, i consider these editorials fashion experiments, esp in lieu of having a model that embodies everything that a concept asks for.
people get too crazy about this stuff sometimes, though understandably so.
[...] springs Paris Fashion runways. What’s up with all this appropriation of black culture? And blackface haven’t we passed this or does the presence of white models in blackface makeup underscore of the [...]