I've been meaning to write about this issue that has been infecting the fashion industry for at least a decade. When I look at the covers and the contents of fashion industry magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Lucky, Teen Vogue, and Elle Girl, I feel nothing but disappointment. They have some ads from the top designers, very little coverages of special events, fashion shows, trunks shows, lackluster editorials, and the most disheartening thing of it all is, they always have a actress, a singer, or any celebrity. Why? What happened to all the supermodels?
Once upon of time, in a magical kingdom called the 1990s, fashion magazines actually featured models on their cover, such as Naomi Campbell, Veronica Webb, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, etc. You learned about their backgrounds, upbringings, their projects, etc. When I look at the magazines today, its full of singers, actresses trying to model. Most of these actresses have enough press and media coverage already as it is. It's a rare opportunity to see supermodels on the cover of Vogue, Elle, or any other high profile fashion magazine. If they ever do they feature a model on the cover it's always Giselle Budenchen, who is past her prime, overrated and boring. I think its very unfair to the majority of models trying to break it in the industry.
Models face fierce competition, body image issues, racism, and low pay. Now they have to compete with these outsiders for photo shoots, ad campaigns, and covers. What happened to singers just being singers? Actresses just being actresses, and models just being models? Seriously, why do celebrities think they can do anything just because they have some fame? Most of the actresses/singers who have appeared in the magazines aren't even fresh either, it's like you see the same person on the magazine all the time. Some examples of this: Keira Knightly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Gardner, Sienna Miller(What is her appeal?), Nicole Kidman, Rihanna and her forehead, Beyonce, Miley Cyrus(why God? why?), Kristen Stewart, any other overrated actress/pop star who wants to model.
It's bad enough that we have to see these women on TV and movies all the time. Now I have to read about them in fashion magazines. Some of them can't dress for their life(Beyonce with her ugly mermaid pageant dresses and Kristen Stewart with her coke whore chic). I miss the days when I could name models by just looking at them on paper. This is why there are very few opportunities for models of color also, actresses/pop stars are snatching all of their jobs. These are models who deserve to be on the cover for once, Jordann Dunn, Chanel Iman, Emanuela de Paule, Sessilee Lopez, Du Juan, Crystal Renn, Ling Tan, Ai Tominaga, Juliana Imai, Coco Rocha, etc.
