diversity

It’s Election Day, and history will be made by this evening, once the West Coast has cast its last ballots. American Presidential elections are significant events, with repercussions into almost every aspect of our lives. There were few fashion points to be made with this one, two men slugging it out in suits. But the awesome factor is that one of the candidates is a black man. At one point, it looked like there might have been a woman presidential candidate, but when that collapsed, suddenly the other party came up with a female vice-presidential choice! Regardless of how you feel about these candidates, at least the ticket isn’t all white men as in the past.

No matter what, history will be made today: we either break the color barrier, or the age barrier, along with a glass ceiling. Whatever the outcome of this day, a message has been sent. More people can have dreams, who once figured there were no possibilities for them because of who they were. The old American adage, “you, too, can grow up to become president,” just might fit everyone in this country. Back in the 1960s, there were concerns over a Catholic president, and then one was elected. Later, questions arose if a divorced man could be fit for the office—and then one was elected.

What’s next? Will I live to see a black woman become President?

I’ve always believed that diversity makes for a more beautiful world. I also thought that most people felt that way, these days. Imagine my surprise when word began to leak out this past year that the fashion shows were employing more and more white models, and less of those of other colors. Having only skinny white girls on the runways is far from completing fashion’s dreamscape. I know Naomi Campbell is bad-tempered, but honestly—we need black, white, Hispanic, and Asian (and would a Native American hurt, either?) women to represent our global world.

For years now, Saudi, Middle Eastern, and Asian women have been major couture buyers. The big designers have customers in all shades of the rainbow as a result of the global economy. Furthermore, as Cathy Horyn says, who writes for the New York Times blog On the Runway, diversity can be a means for “Beauty and Soul.” I hope the Fall 2008 New York Fashion Week organizers are listening: put more models of different races out there for all to see. Fashionable fantasies shouldn’t be for just one group.

Josephine Baker had to leave 1920s America for France in order to receive the acclaim she deserved for her talent. Do we really wish for a return to those times? This is a clear-cut case of NOT wanting everything old to be new again…