Ziara recounts photoshoots where she’d been the only person of colour on set – and often felt like she was intentionally brought in to fill that role. On one recent shoot, she said she even received a 50 per cent pay reduction because her hair wasn’t “curly enough”.“They didn't give me a brief or anything. They literally said, ‘go dunk your head in the sink, it’s not curly enough’ and deducted my pay after I'd worked for eight hours,” she said.“I was the only person of colour on that set. I was literally just shaking the whole time. It was so scary. Nobody really stood up for me with that.”“I was the only person of colour on that set. I was literally just shaking the whole time. It was so scary. Nobody really stood up for me with that.” – Ziara Rae
Three years ago, the global Black Lives Matter movement, spurred on by the unfortunate passing of George Floyd, had companies scrounging to fill their Instagram feeds with non-white bodies. Once-beige timelines became breeding grounds for photos of diverse models, and fashion brands added to the noise by promoting Black and ethnic faces from their back catalogues. It was a good time to be a person of colour in the industry. People were taking notice.
Though BLM may not have determined whether a Black model was booked, it was a jumping-off point into the diversification of an industry that, for years, lulled in the confines of whiteness. For a few months, bigger bodies, different backgrounds and different heights trumped the Eurocentric beauty standards. But that support has since dwindled. “I hate to say it, but right around the Black Lives Matter movement, when a lot of Australian brands were very out of touch and felt the need to – out of public perception – book Black people, I was very busy,” Lisa*, who was scouted by one of Australia’s prestige modelling agencies a few years ago, told VICE.“It was at the point where I couldn't be in more than one place at once.”It’s no secret ethnic models get more work after traumatic global events. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter, the Stop Asian Hate campaign or even the death of Cassius Turvey – companies want to ride whatever wave is trending.“You're not gonna see diverse campaigns season after season when the creative team or the team behind the brand is majority white, especially when Black Lives Matter or any avid social movement isn't fresh in their mind,” Cameroonian comedian, writer and model Aurelia St Clair told VICE.“You're not gonna see diverse campaigns season after season when the creative team or the team behind the brand is majority white, especially when Black Lives Matter or any avid social movement isn't fresh in their mind.” – Aurelia St Clair
In 2021, Sydney-based model and movement coach Basjia Almaan set Australian media alight after a poignant Instagram post criticising Fashion Week’s diversity went viral. It landed her a gig as a casting director for an Iordanes Spyridon Gogos show. “Last year [2022], it was very similar to the feeling of Black Lives Matter, because the year before there had been such an issue with the lack of diversity,” Almaan told VICE.“I've done so much work in the last couple of years and I still feel like it really isn't enough.” – Basjia Almaan
When it comes to colourism in the industry, models that are seen as palatably diverse for a white market often present as racially ambiguous. Australian model of Colombian descent, Juan Dueñas Gutierrez, believes his “lighter skin” is one reason he gets booked for jobs. “I’ve noticed here that my racial ambiguity to white Australians is definitely a privilege because I'm more likely to get booked for jobs because they can fit me into more categories,” he told VICE.“When you look at a lot of the briefs for the characters that they're casting, it's so funny, because there's been times on set where I look at my archetype and it says ‘Asian man’. I'm not Asian at all but to some people I guess I kind of look like that. There’s also been other times where it literally just says ‘racially ambiguous’.”“There's been times on set where I look at my archetype and it says ‘Asian man’. I'm not Asian at all but to some people I guess I kind of look like that. There’s also been other times where it literally just says ‘racially ambiguous’.” – Juan Dueñas Gutierrez
El Salvadorian model Mayatu Nova said there are specific ideals for people of all races that hold the industry back.“There are agencies that actively are like, ‘Oh, yeah, you're not a part of the industry standard, but we don't really give a shit about that, we will still support you’, but that’s not where a lot of other agencies are sitting,” she told VICE.“Unless you're Sudanese and super tall, they’re very much not interested. Once they have three to four mixed girls, or light-skinned girls, they don't need anyone else. But then they’ll have books and books of the very standard Euro-centric model.”“And so I even question myself, and also other models that I know, how often are we actually getting put out and sent out for jobs or for castings, compared to our white peers? How often is that actually happening?” – Mayatu Nova
“In reality, Priscilla's is a very small agency representing just over 200 models and probably just over 70 of them are people of colour. So I think that’s a pretty good representation,” owner and founder, Priscilla Leighton Clarke, told VICE.When it comes to what clients want, Clarke said it can be “extremely frustrating”.“We can’t make the clients use the girls we think they should use, we have to encourage and present the model as best as we can to encourage the client to use that model,” she said.While that might be the case, models actively working in modelling told VICE they believed the fashion industry was beginning to tilt back to its long-held Eurocentric aesthetics, and many still felt like they weren’t being put forward for jobs in comparison to their white-counterparts.“Australia is just always going to follow whatever works,” Mayatu Nova said.“We can’t make the clients use the girls we think they should use, we have to encourage and present the model as best as we can to encourage the client to use that model.” – Priscilla Leighton Clarke