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Despite Italian Vogue's recent black issue, the international fashion world still prefers white skin.

By Sameer Reddy | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Jul 3, 2008 | Updated: 4:59 p.m. ET Jul 3, 2008

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Posted By: Realist1 @ 07/28/2008 12:11:43 AM

Comment: Ridiculous article. Anyone who doesn't come from central Africa, anyone whose skin is "light" whether olive, light brown or white is someone "white looking". The very, very dark people that these culture critics want are actually a minority of the globe. The whole article is rife with exaggeration. For example, I have watched anime any only a minority of characters are blond. Also, "white" models do not dominate in non-western areas of the world. It would be interested in reading and objectivist take on this subject, rather than exaggeration for effect.
Posted By: stacy_g_ie @ 07/06/2008 7:42:54 PM

Comment: I'm white, very pale actually, and I keep it that way.........but you white pride people are disgusting. I haven't really got much more to add to the argument, I just wanted to say I find your racism appalling. But white people DO spend a lot of money on tanning lotions and sprays and sunbed sessions, and I myself find it impossible to find makeup to match my light skintone, as the norm is now a medium beige. So clearly, being pale hasn't been 'in' for a long time. Having had that minor gripe, I'm all for diversity. But that does mean diversity. So from the palest to the darkest models, all skin tones have strangths and weaknesses when it comes to modelling (don't tell me bright colours look as good on white girls as they do on black girls!) and the industry should try DIVERSITY rather than just 'black is in' or 'white is in'.
- Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/06/2008 8:13:05 PM
  
  Comment:
  Stacy, let me say that to me (an olive-skinned person myself) pale is beautiful!
  
  But unfortunately, as we see in the forum, some people still want to base their self-worth in the color of their skin. Somebody should tell them about gene theory and how likely they are to have more in common genetically with a black African than to another white person.
  
  Very insightful comments on your part! ; )
Posted By: myk999 @ 07/06/2008 9:59:04 AM

Comment: The whine never ends. Now we are required to find blacks 'beautiful'. The fashion industry gives people what they want. If I want to see someone who looks like an ape, I'll go to the zoo.
Posted By: whitepride @ 07/06/2008 9:34:25 AM

Comment: There is nothing beautiful about an animal that is the color of feces. Whites are the standard of beauty for a reason: they are the most attractive to the entire population. Would you put a monkey in a dress and say it is beautiful? I think not.
- Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/06/2008 8:05:06 PM
  
  Comment: And when you go to school and take psychology 101, hopefully your professor will teach you about "conditioning". Conditioning is a behavior or tendency that comes about not naturally but through education. In Africa, the standard of beauty is black, not white. In Asia is oriental. If only white was beautiful, then everyone would only marry whites.
  
  If you need to put someone down to extol yourself then your self-esteem needs major work.
Posted By: CZMD @ 07/06/2008 1:06:18 AM

Comment: There is one over-riding reason why white skin, blue/green eyes, and blond/red hair are prized as beautiful around the world-- they are rare. Just as diamonds and gold are valued by every culture on earth because of their scarcity, so the lighter pigmentation of northern Europeans makes them stand out in a crowd. Since evolution drives individuals to seek out genetic novelty, and since most people in the world outside northern Europe and parts of Asia have dark skin, and straight, black hair-- they are attracted to the lighter pignented.

I happen to have green eyes and light brown hair streaked with blond. Yet my ideal woman does not look like me-- she has instead long, thick, black hair, olive skin, and beautiful dark, almond shaped eyes.
- Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:34:21 PM
  
  Comment: Nope, you are wrong, in Africa, only black people are seen as beautiful, in the orient, only oriental people are seen as beautiful. Same thing goes on in Europe.
  In case you didn't know, in America, 89% of blacks marry blacks, don't kid yourself with Reggie Bush/kim K whatever, they are in the minority. Just like most whites marry whites, so do most blacks date blacks. End of story.
Posted By: underdog @ 07/05/2008 9:53:19 PM

Comment: It wasn't that long ago the fashion industry took a lot of flak for wanting the models to look like burnt out heroin users. Even Bill Clinton critizized them for the look. The fashion industrys veiw of reality is slanted to the extremes. A few years from now the look could be all women of color but none with a pale complecsion. This is an industry that is so full of self importance that someone needs to mention to them they are just selling clothes.
- Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/05/2008 11:19:05 PM
  
  Comment: Eloquently stated. : )
Posted By: underdog @ 07/05/2008 7:08:13 PM

Comment: Someone else asked the question but are we now to see affirmative action for an industry that is so superficial that if it disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow few would notice. About writing real stories about real issues instead of writing useless dribble.
Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:28:38 PM

Comment: Gloria8,
Please take notes. Your hips are full because you are obese. Your chest is big because every fat girls chest is big. Ever wonder why? Because your breast are 99 % fat. You look like your 35 at 55 because you have had oil running down your face from your hair for 55 yrs. And if every white is trying to mimic you (Im laughin now) Why are the brothas running to the white cave bytch anyway?
- Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 8:04:21 PM
  
  Comment: Sportlock09- Really is that why Kim K. and Jennifer Lopez, now flaunt the big asses that only a few short years again, they would have covered profusely. And white boy I'm sure you tan, so to me that like chicken grease to bake your flesh in. Because I'm AA, I'm not fat, that's your white boy stereotype. I'm in the gym 4 days a week and I could make you cry. I.m 5'10 and 160 lbs. I also don't have a curl. I wear my hair natural. And I know you're jealous whiteboy, but it's a fact black, don't crack. Deal with it.
  - Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/07/2008 10:54:11 AM
    
    Comment: Gotta love the fact you find me a boy because im white. A tad racist are we? Comparing yourself with j-lo is definately a stretch and you know it. Matter of fact. J-lo looks white. And again, ask the black boys since you wanna call me a boy why their all running around with white girls? Your so pretty they dont want ya? Yeah, sure. Kim K? J-lo? Be honest with yourself for once. Do they more resemble a white girl or a black girl? Long stringy hair not nappy. Fair complexion. No big lips, and another thing. A big azz is not the same as your fat ass. And the grease is running down your face not mine
    - Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:46:28 PM
      
      Comment: Nope, you are wrong, in Africa, only black people are seen as beautiful, in the orient, only oriental people are seen as beautiful. Same thing goes on in Europe.
      In case you didn't know, in America, 89% of blacks marry blacks, don't kid yourself with Reggie Bush/kim K whatever, they are in the minority. Just like most whites marry whites, so do most blacks date blacks. End of story.
Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:18:33 PM

Comment: I always thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder? Haven't we all seen a man or woman before that we felt was just hidious looking, but sure enough, 3 kids walking behind them. Some like fat chicks some like skinny. Some like black, some like white. There is no standard for beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder.
Posted By: techresmgt @ 07/05/2008 1:14:13 PM

Comment: The media just loves to keep stirring the pot, don't they? The media acts like they are 'all knowing, holier-than-thou', and what is best for civilization at large. This is not news, this is one journalists 'take' on a story; very little investigative work was done, obviously.
Posted By: TinaJ @ 07/05/2008 11:10:15 AM

Comment: maybe we will see more diverse girls in high fashion in the near future
Obama 08'
- Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:32:49 PM
  
  Comment: Are we now pondering Afirmative action for black runway models? Does a fashion magazine now HAVE to have black models?
Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 12:41:19 AM

Comment: I love my dark skin and features. I have full voluptous breast and full lips. All of which white now pay handsomely for with their money and soemtimes their lives. I see whites who tan daily or spray tan. Either way it's them mimicing my features. For the blonde blue eyed people by the time most of you are 30, you look 50. I am 55 and I look 35 and I love myself. The Ebony Fashion Fair is international and those women are ferocious. They also use models with different body types, not the anorexic sticks in the so called international mags.
- Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 11:54:43 AM
  
  Comment: Its nice that you are in love with yourself...hope you will be very happy alone with your ego. I think everyone in their own way has beauty and it is very restricted to, out of spite, and left over issues from prior narrow-minded individuals, to limit your acceptance and even appreciation of others in their uniquiness. How sad you have become exactly like the people that made you feel the need to down grade others...I love seeing the different types of people the world and God has managed to create.
  - Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 2:29:47 PM
    
    Comment: You must be white and blonde. You would have me be sad about how I look. The article is more truth than not. I have a great deal of confidence in myself and how I look. I'm not alone at all, in a very happy relationship. Most Black women have always loved their full hips, breasts and lips. So, don't try to make this about your views on world history. You bear responsiblity for that too. I still love myself, irregardless of what you think.,
Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 12:21:58 AM

Comment: I think its sad, we allow magazines to tell us who is pretty and who is not. Dark people all over constantly are trying to whiten their skin while whites are trying to tan and darken their skin...does anyone else see the irony here??? They are making billions off these creams, treatments, oils, taning lotions, ect...Accept how you were born, who you are as a person, and go with it, love it, if you feel beautiful it will shine out from within. Ever notice that there are some people you just can't figure out why they are attractive to you, when they are not your normal "type", its their confidence and their personality breaking through. People should quit letting these billion dollar industries keep making money off their insecurities and letting the magazines dictate what is beautiful!
Posted By: gettalifeplz @ 07/04/2008 10:17:58 PM

Comment: @lunari. Soooo..you're on this forum belching Aryan pride (TWICE, I might add) while you allow your kids to be "ALWAYS, ALWAYS getting groped, touched and their hair pulled by non-whites in the airport. As long as blond/blue eyes are less than 5% of the world's population, we will be exotic." Sounds like you DEFINITELY have your priorities straight!
- Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/05/2008 8:50:05 PM
  
  Comment: So explain why their hair has been pulled the last 4 times at the LA international airport? You don't like the thought that maybe blond/blue eyes can be thought of as exotic by non-whites? What priorities don't I have straight.....am I suppose to self-flagellate myself because I am a white person and have blond/blue eye offspring ( a minority in the world I might add)?
Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/04/2008 9:45:37 PM

Comment: Blond/blue eyed people are exotic to the rest of the world. It is the typical short sighted, whining minority in the US that is jealous of the beauty of blond/blue eyed people. I have three young children with bright blond hair and blue eyes. They are ALWAYS, ALWAYS getting groped, touched and their hair pulled by non-whites in the airport. As long as blond/blue eyes are less than 5% of the world's population, we will be exotic.
Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/04/2008 9:41:17 PM

Comment: What's wrong with a white person as being the ideal of beauty? After all, blond/blue eye people are the minority in the world. White people are seen as exotic in most of the world. My three young children have white/blond hair and blue eyes and are ALWAYS, ALWAYS getting groped, touched and their hair pulled by non-whites in the airport. We are exotic to the rest of the world. I get upset when my skin color and beauty is faulted as the improper ideal of beauty....
- Posted By: myk999 @ 07/06/2008 5:46:02 PM
  
  Comment: Studies have proven that whites are seen as the most attractive to non-whites. Just ask any black man. They turn down attractive black women in favor of fat white ones.
  - Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:52:50 PM
    
    Comment: where did you get that??? from your delusional mind? according to official statistics, 89% of blacks in the US marry blacks.
- Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 12:01:52 PM
  
  Comment: There is nothing wrong with that as long as everyone (and apparently especially you) realizes that it is just one beauty among many different types. White people may be exotic in SOME parts of the world but so are other types. Living around the country and the world, I have had the opportunity to see exotic beauty from many places and have come to the realization on how many different types of people, features, skin tones, hair texture/color there are. Everyone is unique and it makes life more interesting.
Posted By: Willem @ 07/04/2008 9:35:50 PM

Comment: It's incredible that a piece that distorts reality for the purpose of demeaning and insulting a particular ethnic group can get published in a place like Newsweek, so long as the group being unfairly smeared is whites. This is crap journalism, that starts with a false portrayal of the facts and then uses that distortion to denigrate a group the writer personally dislikes.
Posted By: maramara @ 07/04/2008 8:49:59 PM

Comment: To be different is not the same as to be deficient. Blacks are equally as talented as whites. They are only victims of extortionism perpertuated by white colonialist. Africa is the best thing continent God created and I bet you in 50 years to come, Europeans, Asians and Americans will be begging for visas to come to Africa.
Posted By: EffYou @ 07/04/2008 11:54:40 AM

Comment: Oh come on. Of all the qualities to hold a model back from success - height, weight, face structure - race is pretty damn irrelevant. If anything, very dark-skinned black girls have it easier - because there's less competition, when a designer wants their token "African" model, they have a much better chance of getting that one spot out of 3 or 4 other girls, than a blonde has trying to compete for one of 10 spots against hundreds of other token blondes.

Please, if you're going to write about the modelling/fashion industry I'd appreciate it if your research goes beyond "flipping through international editions of vogue."
- Posted By: jericho4119 @ 07/05/2008 6:47:50 AM
  
  Comment: What? 8 out of 10 women on the planet have naturally darker skin and yet from the world of fashion you would think those percentages were reversed. And lets not get started on the number of people with blue eyes.
  
  So, when the vast majority of the planet fights over those one or two spots on the runway, you tell them to "lighten up" and revel in their token status?
Posted By: schizobeck @ 07/04/2008 11:11:03 AM

Comment: The continued complaining of the tan/brown set that anybody at all prefers fair skin is HOGWASH. Since I was a child in the 1970s, fair skin was NEVER IN and the closer you were to a savage dark Hawaiin Tropic tan, the more chance you had of being seen as pretty. Fair skin has not been popular in my lifetime, though I believe it may have been popular for a few minutes in the 1930s. It has just recently, in the last few years or so, only become acceptable to photograph a woman with milky white skin, but still certainly not preferred, as evidenced in any magazine you care to pick up.

Continued complaining by the tan/brown set about fashionistas preferring fair skin is by those who turn a blind eye to reality and try to stroke the egos of those who've been running things for forever anyway. Again, it's all HYPOCRITICAL HOGWASH.
Posted By: schizobeck @ 07/04/2008 11:10:33 AM

Comment: The continued complaining of the tan/brown set that anybody at all prefers fair skin is HOGWASH. Since I was a child in the 1970s, fair skin was NEVER IN and the closer you were to a savage dark Hawaiin Tropic tan, the more chance you had of being seen as pretty. Fair skin has not been popular in my lifetime, though I believe it may have been popular for a few minutes in the 1930s. It has just recently, in the last few years or so, only become acceptable to photograph a woman with milky white skin, but still certainly not preferred, as evidenced in any magazine you care to pick up.

Continued complaining by the tan/brown set about fashionistas preferring fair skin is by those who turn a blind eye to reality and try to stroke the egos of those who've been running things for forever anyway. Again, it's all HYPOCRITICAL HOGWASH.
Posted By: ngy460 @ 07/03/2008 11:20:55 PM

Comment: this nothin but raciest,stuff here
- Posted By: sd253 @ 07/06/2008 7:14:46 PM
  
  Comment: Read a book once in awhile ngy460.
- Posted By: ngy460 @ 07/04/2008 10:49:57 AM
  
  Comment: this here is absolute insult to negroes,,and all other peoples of color.
  - Posted By: jericho4119 @ 07/05/2008 6:42:58 AM
    
    Comment: FYI: We haven't been "negroes" for quite awhile.

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Posted By: Realist1 @ 07/28/2008 12:11:43 AM

Posted By: stacy_g_ie @ 07/06/2008 7:42:54 PM

Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/06/2008 8:13:05 PM

Posted By: myk999 @ 07/06/2008 9:59:04 AM

Posted By: whitepride @ 07/06/2008 9:34:25 AM

Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/06/2008 8:05:06 PM

Posted By: CZMD @ 07/06/2008 1:06:18 AM

Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:34:21 PM

Posted By: underdog @ 07/05/2008 9:53:19 PM

Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 07/05/2008 11:19:05 PM

Posted By: underdog @ 07/05/2008 7:08:13 PM

Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:28:38 PM

Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 8:04:21 PM

Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/07/2008 10:54:11 AM

Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:46:28 PM

Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:18:33 PM

Posted By: techresmgt @ 07/05/2008 1:14:13 PM

Posted By: TinaJ @ 07/05/2008 11:10:15 AM

Posted By: SPORTLOCK09 @ 07/05/2008 5:32:49 PM

Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 12:41:19 AM

Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 11:54:43 AM

Posted By: gloria8 @ 07/05/2008 2:29:47 PM

Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 12:21:58 AM

Posted By: gettalifeplz @ 07/04/2008 10:17:58 PM

Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/05/2008 8:50:05 PM

Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/04/2008 9:45:37 PM

Posted By: lunar1995 @ 07/04/2008 9:41:17 PM

Posted By: myk999 @ 07/06/2008 5:46:02 PM

Posted By: davidif @ 08/04/2008 8:52:50 PM

Posted By: Graver @ 07/05/2008 12:01:52 PM

Posted By: Willem @ 07/04/2008 9:35:50 PM

Posted By: maramara @ 07/04/2008 8:49:59 PM

Posted By: EffYou @ 07/04/2008 11:54:40 AM

Posted By: jericho4119 @ 07/05/2008 6:47:50 AM

Posted By: schizobeck @ 07/04/2008 11:11:03 AM

Posted By: schizobeck @ 07/04/2008 11:10:33 AM

Posted By: ngy460 @ 07/03/2008 11:20:55 PM

Posted By: sd253 @ 07/06/2008 7:14:46 PM

Posted By: ngy460 @ 07/04/2008 10:49:57 AM

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