When Beyonce released "Formation," it was heralded as a black girl anthem. As Essence put it, "It is wholly and undeniable a tribute to blackness—particularly black girl power."
So when an Australian designer used it as the soundtrack to her fashion show — with only white models walking down the runway — shit went down.
It happened at the Misha Collection show, which closed off Australia Fashion Week on Monday. Bella Hadid led the gaggle of Caucasian models (and was supposedly paid $400,000 to be part of it), for the show's finale, as you can see from IMG's Instagram video below.
The lack of diversity in the model selection is problematic in itself, but the fact that a group of all-white models walked to a song that celebrates Black women seems completely backwards.
Yahoo! was the first to point out the backlash the video received.
Here is a small sampling of the comments from outraged Instagram users:
"Not a person of color in sight…."
"How you gonna use black songs but not black people smh."
"Thy (sic) are they walking to formation? Not one black model or POC in sight. Tried it."
"Idk how blind you have to be to see what's wrong with that statement. the reason people complain is because there is a obvious be blatant lack of POC in the industry. there has NEVER, I repeat never, been a lack of white models in this industry. people complain because representation matters. that's really not too difficult of a concept."
This gaffe is another example of how the lack of diversity in fashion continues to be an issue.
Yes, small steps are being made for more inclusion, such as Zac Posen's predominantly black model casting in his fall 2016 fashion show at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) and Kanye West's diverse cast at his Yeezy Season 3 show.
However, a recent runway diversity report by The Fashion Spot suggests that while NYFW was the most diverse it had ever been in its fall 2016 season, the runways in London, Paris and Milan saw people of colour, plus-size, transgender and aged models under-represented.
In other words, a lot of work still needs to be done.
Despite this, there's a silver lining to blunders similar to Misha Collection's model cast and song choice.
As Yahoo!'s Nora Crotty puts it, "they bring much-needed attention to an important issue that’s been plaguing the industry for WAY too long."
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