It's one of the most blantant, and quite frankly, shocking instances of racism we've ever seen in the fashion industry.
Russian editor (and street style fav) Miroslava Duma's new online magazine Buro 247 published a photo shoot that featured Dasha Zhukova, the Russian editor-in-chief of Garage magazine, sitting on a half-naked black woman (actually, a mannequin) who's filling in for a chair. Gross, right?
Unfortunately, the image showed up just in time for Martin Luther King day, which was celebrated in the U.S. on Monday. Sigh.
The photo shoot has naturally caused a lot of backlash and anger, which made the editors of the site crop the black woman out of the photo.
Duma posted the photo to her Instagram page before taking it down and posting an apology:
It reads,
"Dear all, Buro24/7.ru team and I personally would like to express our sincerest apology to anyone who we have offended and hurt. It was absolutely not our intention. We are against racisim or gender inequality or anything that infringes upon anyone's rights. We love, respect and look up to people regardless of their race, gender or social status. The chair in the photo should only be seen as a piece of art which was created by British Pop-Artist Allen Jones, and not as any form of racial discrimination. In our eyes everyone is equal. And we love everybody."
But not everyone is buying the apology. Claire Sulmers, the editor of FashionBombDaily.com, writes that the photo's message is of "white dominance and superiority, articulated in a seemingly serene yet overtly degrading way."
We couldn't agree more with this statement and unfortunately this is just one instance among so many that keep popping up in the fashion industry, where it seems as if using black women as props is seen as "art."
Just recently, we've seen fashion editors wear blackface in the name of fun, fashion magazines using models with blackface and appalling photo shoots where black people are used as slaves and servants to white models.
In an industry where Fashion Weeks are just "getting whiter" and seasoned supermodels say the lack of diversity in fashion is worrying, it's clear there is still a long way to go.
What do you think of this photo? Would you consider it racist? Sound off in the comments below.
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