How Fashion Month Let Down Curve Models Everywhere

Salute to all my folks working this latest round of fashion weeks, we made it! I can’t stop thinking about Zaya Wade’s Miu Miu debut and, most importantly, her selfie with THE Pat McGrath. As we rest, recharge, and reset, another brief fashion month recap:

Over the past two seasons, it’s been made clear that the industry’s “body positive reckoning” was always performative. This lean back into fatphobia follows a larger pattern of repression in the wake of the 2020 uprisings. In the words of model and cultural worker, maya finoh:

“Towards the end of 2020, there were infographics popping up about ‘ally fatigue’, which was ridiculous, but I honestly feel like these brands just decided it’s too much work to think about anti-Blackness and fatphobia all the time,” they explain. “Part of me feels like ‘BBLs being over’ was a purposeful push from the fashion industry to justify caring less about having diversity on the runway.”

“Jamaica is everywhere—it’s easy to draw inspiration from the cultural diaspora. There are beautiful Caribbean communities all over, and I wanted to help build a bridge from my country to the world.”