Model calls out Paris Fashion Week for being racist against her. She has video to prove it.
Model Londone Myers called attention to the racism inherent in Paris Fashion Week by making a time-lapse video of herself waiting to get her hair done for a show, but being ignored by the stylists around her. In the caption to the video, which Myers posted to her Instagram account, she wrote that the stylists backstage didn't know how to do the hair of the models of color, so they all focused on the white models instead.
This is certainly not the first time something like this has happened to her (hence the idea for the video). The full caption reads,
I don't need special treatment from anyone. What I need is for hairstylists to learn how to do black hair. I'm so tired of people avoiding doing my hair at shows. How dare you try to send me down the runway with a linty busted afro. We all know if you tried that on a white model you'd be #canceled. If one doesn't stand we all fall. If it isn't my fro it'll probably be yours.
Speaking to Teen Vogue, Myers said, “I was just so frustrated with how people would avoid even looking at me. I usually do my hair before every show, but this time I just showed up without anything on hand like everyone else.”
She continued, claiming that "no explanation was given” as to why she was overlooked.
There isn’t really much confronting you can do with these hairstylists. I’m not going to chastise [them], but [they] still don’t know what to do with natural hair. The other black girls at the show spoke French, so I was kind of on my own. I simply asked around the room for who did black hair multiple times and was cast aside, until they sat me in this guy’s chair who tried to send me off looking unpolished, like the other [black] girls. One of the other black models saw all of the lint in my hair and was surprised.
Myers received a ton of empathy and support in the comments of her Instagram post, especially from other models who had experienced the same thing.
Yeah, how about this?
Myers told Teen Vogue, “Sometimes it really does feel like the industry just likes to categorize us by skin tone and make us feel like there is only room for one black model at a time. We need to get rid of that mindset because there is room enough for all of us.”