Black models stage topless protest in Rio, Rio de Janeiro Fashion Week 2013
Last week BW of Brazil brought you brief coverage the latest edition of the São Paulo Fashion Week, one of the two main annual fashion events in the country and, as usual, it showcased a spectacle full of models who looked as if they came directly from Paris, London and Rome, even with the African theme of the new designs. As has been regularly featured here, “blackouts” on Brazilian runways are nothing new. So now the second major fashion event of the year, Fashion Rio takes center stage and for the second year in row, black models make a statement by parading topless in public (see video of act below). In an act in celebration of the November Month of Black Consciousness as well as a new agreement designed to feature at least a few more models of color, black models perhaps captured more attention in a short act than they normally get during the near week of the fashion event. So, again, there is an agreement that 10% of the models featured in the show with be of African descent, but let’s not get too excited. Why? 1) 10% is still quite a meager quota for an Afro-Brazilian (preto/black + pardo/brown) population estimated at 100 million and, 2) A 10% quota was promised a few years ago but was not honored at the actual show. Let’s just wait and see what happens.
A group of about 40 artists and models took part in an act in the Zona Portuária, in front of Píer Mauá (in Rio de Janeiro), where the first night of parades of the season autumn/winter Fashion Rio will take place late on Wednesday, November 7). According to director of the group Palco dos Mil Sonhos (meaning Stage of a Thousand Dreams), Leonidas Lopes, the presentation is a celebration of the Month of Black Consciousness (November).
The presentation came a day after the signing of a commitment by the company putting on the event, Luminosidade, and the Public Defender Rio de Janeiro, recommending a quota of 10% of black models on the catwalk.
“The term of the commitment is a celebration of a step that can bring a space that is still not there in Rio. The aesthetic design sold by fashion does not meet the proposed use of the majority of the population,” said Moses Alcuña, public policy coordinator of the NGO Educafro.
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