I’m wearing a baby blue M.O.B shirt and jeans on my way back from my first designer purchase. The sales assistant at the Comme des Garçons store hands me a huge shopping bag, and I try to balance it over my shoulder with my camera, which, during that time I carried with me as often as I carried an I.D card.
Somehow, but still quite to script, I get lost wandering through the streets and end up near Jardin des Tuileries. A line of black cars fence around the public park and a huge white tent I’ve never seen before lets people in and out with cameras and fancy clothes. “They must be shooting a movie!”
My aimless wandering around routine typically went like this – walk around town, get distracted by something, and follow that until I discovered something new. And in all my wanderings this would be, by far, my favorite one to stumble upon: Paris Fashion Week!
I proudly stood next to the sign that read “photographers” and started taking pictures of people and their clothes. I didn’t care to notice then that no one bothered to photograph me or people who looked like me or that I will accept this as the norm for nearly a decade.
I skipped fashion week last season for a long list of reasons. The quick answer was that I was planning for a trip and didn’t have much time, but I knew that was just an excuse. I have watched myself, on countless occasions buy last minute tickets, the night before, even the day of for Paris and New York all because I could not stay away from Fashion Week.
The real reason was that I was tired of leaving empty-handed. Every time I felt that way in the past, my passion for what I do would override the logistics of putting money and time into something that gave me quite little in return and doing so for nearly a decade!
“Honestly, not many black people attend fashion week! I want it to be diverse but it’s a heavily skewed ratio,” I told the thousandth person who never really asked me for an explanation for why my photographs were not as culturally diverse.
However, this season, when I decided to test out my claim, I discovered that it was still a pretty unbalanced ratio of white to black attendance at fashion week. The majority of the few black people who attend scurry off right after the show and don’t really wait for pictures. At first, I was a little upset. Well, that’s why! But then again who can blame them. If you are constantly ignored as you walk out of shows, why would you wait for a second longer outside to be photographed? Unless you are a black celebrity or extremely popular influencer, the chances that you would get photographed are little! I’ve seen black influencers with millions of followers photographed by only a handful of us while others turn their heads. Also, imagine having to do something as crazy as wearing an attention-grabbing avant-garde hat just to be photographed while your White or Asian counterparts could very well get away with a T-shirt and jeans!
On my first day shooting this season, I let the few black attendees getaway when I could not catch up with them because they were leaving the shows so quickly. But after a while, I started literally chasing them down to photograph them!
I typically write a list of objectives before every fashion week: Capture bags, shoes, more face shots, etc. This season, my objectives bore a stark difference. They included goals to tell a different story, to inspire, and to “show us majestically.” Even though my approach will forever remain honest reporting at fashion week, I have become increasingly aware of my power to use that same reporting tool to spotlight the underserved. We all have the power to change the narrative. Even if it means putting in a little more effort and chasing down that narrative until it also realizes that we too want it to be heard!
That was my kind of meaningful work this season. And though, somehow, I’ve still found myself back where my passion for the work is overriding logistics of costs and it feels, once again, like I am leaving financially empty-handed as an independent style reporter who shoots for herself (but is looking for work! Hey!) this one would go as me chipping away at the glass ceiling!
I am still committed to sharing all my favorite trends, influencers and everyone in between. Even with this new goal, I’m aware that I’m only at 1% of tipping the scale for balance. But if you think I’m crazy when I say it is the right thing to do, imagine what it felt like for me today when as a bunch of us photographers photographed film star, Issa Rae, outside Michael Kors’ show she said loudly and proudly, “Yass! Black photographers!”
Being noticed and acknowledged intentionally matters!
