There were some raised eyebrows at Valentino’s spring-summer 2016 show at Paris Fashion Week, which was a collection inspired by ‘wild, tribal africa’. That’s probably enough of a reason to tilt your head slightly and say ‘Huh, OK’ but even more so when it became apparent that, out of the 90 or so looks, there were only a handful of women of colour on the runway.
In fact, there were less than 10 in the entire show. On top of this, the white models were wearing their hair in cornrows (get your ‘cultural appropriation’ hats on) and the design house used words such as ‘primitive’ and ‘tribal’ ‘yet regal’ to describe the show. What makes it primitive yet regal?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.