A critical view on casting Black models
Or how getting to know why Pierpaolo Piccioli cast majorly Black models for the 2019 Valentino Haute Couture Collection drove me crazy
Sailor is an Italian podcast created in collaboration with Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (the National Chamber of Italian Fashion) hosted by author Chiara Tagliaferri and art critic and curator Maria Luisa Frisa. The show is described as below:
Sailor. The anatomy of the body through fashion. Because talking about fashion doesn’t only involve talking about clothes. Sailor is made of the voices of the people who make and design fashion. We got into the intimacy of the creative directors’ homes and ateliers, who, telling us their stories revealed a lot about ourselves as well as our existence here-and-now.
Since its launch in September 2023, the monthly show has had Maria Grazia Chiuri and Alessandro Michele as guests. Sailor isn’t a podcast about the fashion designers’ career path but their creative process and approach to the world. Last week, they had another guest of honour in the name of Pierpaolo Piccioli, Valentino’s creative director. In the fashion world, he is a rarity now. With Max Mara’s creative director, Ian Griffiths, who has been with the Emilian brand for 36 years, Pierpaoplo Piccioli is kind of a unicorn in the era of the fashion designers’ musical chairs. He started at Valentino in 2008 with Maria Grazia Chiuri beside him until she left for Dior in 2016. As a duo, they were known to create beauty, and now by himself, ‘PPPiccioli’ - his Instagram name - is THE unchallenged beauty master in the Italian fashion industry.
Listening to him on Sailor was the occasion to understand better who he is as a creative and how what happened in Italy and the world affected and influenced his creative process.
“I think haute couture is associated with an imagery that belongs to the old pictures, and the high society salons from the past. But this beautiful vision is definitely outdated, and irrelevant to the present time[…] Haute couture is the highest expression of what [Marshall] McLuhan said: ‘the medium is the message.‘ Therefore, the medium can be the more powerful possible to convey the message in the most powerful manner. I don’t believe in modern couture. For me couture is couture. I’ve always thought that, in the end, haute couture is modern by nature. In the moment in which there is no pattern, each time you start from scratch. Each time you, somehow, begin something that belongs to the time in history in which you are doing it. Not using a pattern gives you free rein and this makes you inevitably witnesss of your time."
Pierpaolo Piccioli
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s approach to haute couture is subversive because he recognises the outdated concept. Yet rightly, because fashion is an art appliqué, the artist, in this case, the fashion designer, can only be a witness of the present time. It is an idea I briefly touched on in PAST FILES: Perfume, The Fashion Designer Best Model when I wrote about Paul Poiret’s perfume Nuit de Chine and its bottle:
“Poiret’s style was definitely inspired by Orientalism - an artistic movement that Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Léon Baskt’s costumes made famous - as the name of his perfume Nuit de Chine (China Night) suggests. Nuit de Chine glass flask, reminiscent of a Chinese snuffbox, is closed by a cabochon stopper, also in glass. The rings on each side of the bottle are made of bakelite, a new material created in 1909. A choice that showed Poiret was first and foremost, a couturier. Let’s not forget that it was the beginning of haute couture, and therefore, fashion designers researched new fabrics to craft their clothing better. It is the same process adopted for the perfume bottle below.”
Paul Poiret witnessed a specific era. He founded his namesake brand in 1903, only 45 years after couture saw the light of the day in 1858. He was at the right time and moment as he assisted and took part in the revolution of the fashion world. So, Pierpaolo Piccioli isn’t wrong when he says couture is modern by nature. But can this modern essence of couture be applied to the current occidental society? Question.
During the interview, the hosts referred to the 2019 Valentino haute couture show in Paris, where most models were Black. I must admit, I almost forgot about it. I clearly remember noticing more Black models than usual and getting slightly surprised. But I didn’t look for further information. Maybe it was the memory of the Spring/Summer 2016 Maasai-inspired Valentino collection that earned the designers cultural appropriation critics, or simply the medium didn’t convey the message. I don’t know, but I focused on the clothes and quickly forgot about seeing more Black models than the 10% to 15% usually allowed on a catwalk. I didn’t question if I enjoyed seeing more Black models, and above all, I didn’t question Pierpaolo Piccioli’s intention. You see, a catwalk or a campaign with more Black and Brown people isn’t going to cut it for me, especially when done by an Italian designer. But since Sailor allowed for an explanation, I listened to Piccioli:
“In January 2019, I did this show with many Black women. It was the result of a process, a reflection that, in reality, took a long time. This collection was born out of an urge as the Italian elections on March 4th [2018] signaled the rise of a xenophobic wave in the country, yet we were all in Paris unable to vote. So, days before the show I looked for the more Black models possible precisely because I clearly wanted to make a point. But I quickly realised that there were few girls in agencies rightly because the 10%-15% of Black girls in agencies was the same percentage of Black women on each catwalk.
[…]
No one referred to [the show] as my vote against the xenophobic wave affecting Italy. So I thought the most powerful way to express my view was to use visuals. The couture salon, Beaton’s images, Truman Capote and the Swans*. This was an era when Black women couldn’t even share a bathroom with white women, yet haute couture was born to celebrate differences, diversity, the made-to-measure, people’s uniqueness. But in actual fact, the haute couture glorification meant glorifying something that was absolutely exclusive and discriminatory. Magazines like Ebony were forced to buy clothes for their editorials because no one wanted to lend anything that a Black woman would wear. Then there was Franca [Sozzani’s] Black Issue, published ten years ago, that almost went unnoticed in Italia.
I started working on that collection using all the stereotypes and clichés of classic haute couture like ruffles, ribbons, stockings, stilettos, and feathered hats. I used everything that recalled classic haute couture stereotypes with Black models. Black models, who by the way, would have been used for a streetwear collection, or a collection inspired by Africa. So I wanted to do th exact opposite, making a collection with flowers, ruffles, ribbons, and feathers. Everything that embodied Truman Capote’s Swans, but on contemporary women belonging to another culture.”
Utterly discombobulated. That’s how I felt right after listening to why he cast Black models. I then gathered my thoughts and wrote the following notes:
Xenophobia didn’t wait until the XXIst century to knock on Italy’s door
The elections Pierpaolo Piccioli are referring to are the 2018 general elections after the dissolution of the Italian parliament in December 2017. Historically, it was a notable moment because Italians had to vote for the members of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and these elections saw the emergence of a right-wing coalition obtaining 265 seats over 360. The emergence of right-wing parties in a government understandably always looks scary, but xenophobia has always existed. The 2018 racially motivated Macerata shooting orchestrated by 28-year-old Luca Traini, who injured six people, was the catalyst of ‘the wave of xenophobia’ in Italy. But before that, there was 19-year-old Abba Guiebre, killed in 2008 by grocery store owners, a father and a son, for stealing biscuits and chocolate. Fast forward to 2020, only four months after George Floyd’s death, 21-year-old Willy Duarte was killed by two brothers in broad daylight, just like husband, father and street vendor Alika Ogorchukwu in 2023. So xenophobia in Italy isn’t a trend or a wave. It is well-engrained in the country’s social fabric, and it kills.
Is casting more Black models an actual political stance?
Though I understood Pierpaolo Piccioli’s intent to challenge traditional haute couture standards and make a political stance, it didn’t resonate with me. It feels like there was confusion between actual diversity and just showing Black bodies in costly clothes. When my Italian friends praise France for being diverse because you see more Black people, I always warn them, explaining that it is not because there are more of us that systemic racism is lesser. And to me, this show was kind of that. Ok, there were more Black models, and so what? Does Valentino hire Black and Brown people in its offices? The image is one thing, but what goes on behind the scenes makes the most impact. It is important to have Black and Brown people working in PR, in the design team, as buyers, etc. Also, diversity isn’t synonymous with Black people, just like xenophobia. Italy’s immigration counts, yes, Black people, but there are also Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Albanese, Romanian, Georgian and Filippino people suffering from xenophobia and racism. So yes, to address social issues Black people face, but diversity isn’t only about Blackness.
If you want to take a stance about your country, choose the right example
Pierpaolo Piccioli wanted to take a stance with Black models to denounce xenophobia in Italy. Yet, he took the USA as an example when the country has an entirely different historical context regarding race and racism in comparison with Italy. Milan is still behind in the fashion industry regarding diversity and tackling racism. In the last years, brands such as Dolce&Gabbana, Prada, and Gucci have all come under scrutiny for perpetuating racist tropes, and progress is plodding. Yet, Michelle Ngonmo, founder of Afro Fashion, is one of the few working to change the narrative and make the Italian fashion industry. Addressing the lack of initiatives helping Black and Brown fashion professionals to be part of the Italian industry is also a way to take a stance against xenophobia. DISCLAIMER: xenophobia affects job opportunities.
Do your research about Black models and haute couture
The mention of casting Black women for streetwear or Africa-inspired collections irked me because, though valid to some extent, some African models embodied couture and elegance in Paris and Milan. I invite you to look in Google Images for Amalia Vairelli, Rebecca Ayoko, Katoucha Niane, and Mounia. All were Yves Saint-Laurent muses, but not only. Paco Rabanne, Gianfranco Ferré, Thierry Mugler and many others hired these women because, to them, they were the epitome of haute couture and elegance. These women were their muses because the relationship between designers and models at their time was much more personal and, therefore, deeper. They designed with them in mind. For example, Yves Saint Laurent made a dress he dedicated to Rebecca Ayoko named Quand les étoiles deviennent noires (When stars turn black). As an Italian designer doing couture and showing in Paris, I believe that if you use Black models to make a political stance, referencing 70s, 80s and 90s Black models who were in Europe, it is necessary to learn about a side of haute couture that needs to be explored and put to light.
I am leaving you with an excerpt from Tim Blanks for The Business of Fashion about Yves Saint Laurent's 1988 haute couture show in which he speaks about all these models fashion doesn’t remember enough to make you understand how much Black African and Carrabean models embodied the highest form of fashion.
“I remember Diana Bienvenu in a broad-shouldered pink satin jacket embroidered with a Picasso guitar; Sonia Cole in a black grosgrain suit with pink-feathered Braque doves flaring from each shoulder; the Senegalese beauty Sadiya Guèye, the traditional bride, here anything but in a ruched white mini-dress with huge white doves swooping around her body. Most of all, I remember YSL’s Guinean muse Katoucha Niane in a column of navy satin, mounted with a sequinned tabard of Braque guitar and doves. I think this still represents the purest confluence of art and fashion, even as our own era has endeavoured oh so diligently to merge the two worlds.
Ah, Katoucha. She was the essence of YSL at that time. She elevated anything she wore, which is probably, perversely why my favourite section of the show was the most somber. That was usual for me with Saint Laurent in his pomp. Even though he was the greatest counter-intuitive colourist in fashion history, it was the sepulchral shimmers he created with his layering of dark, sheer mousselines or chiffons in shades of black, navy or cocoa that I loved the most. The designer draped Amalia Vairelli, another of his favourites, in navy chiffon then swathed her in lilac satin, clasped at the shoulder with a gilded Braque dove. A beturbaned Katoucha, in floor-sweeping navy chiffon, made a strikingly funereal contrast to her reappearance 22 looks later as a Cubist fantasia. It’s tempting to think that Yves recognised a kindred darkness in her soul. She would mysteriously drown in the Seine almost exactly twenty years later.”
As I mentioned in my previous comment I have read Tim’s post that you referenced & appreciate his viewpoint on the fashion industry above most others
Amen, Emmanuelle.
Fashion would do well in remembering that political stances need to come from a place of realness as a starting point.
I enjoy the poetry of the work Piccioli does for Valentino, the creativity and craft of his design but I also often feel alienated. Things like the one your article beautifully covers, or having his models go out in unwalkable shoes (not once but twice), the ultra skinniness, the 2 mile catwalk treck and this idea of couture as having women look like a decorative doll, talk of a(nother) man in his high castle telling women how they should perceive themselves and often missing.
I have the black issue of Vogue Italy and was analising it with my students a few months ago. It was shocking realising that absolutely all the ads in the magazine featured exclusively white models. An industry that reflects and caters for a diverse world needs to be diverse itself, otherwise the energy gets misdirected, which is often the case.