They could share the grim realities of backstage dynamics with clients, as well as offering empathy and support to models who report such incidents. Nyasha firmly believes that modelling agents can play a key role in protecting Black models from mistreatment. Models are people who deserve to be protected and treated with respect.” I hear horrific stories of abuse, and it’s not acceptable. “In reality, models are faced with so many challenges and are put in incredibly vulnerable situations. “It’s a misconception that to be a model is lucky and glamorous,” says Models Trust Founder and CEO Elizabeth Peyton-Jones.
It’s clear there’s an urgent need for change, but how exactly can the treatment of Black models be improved to create a truly inclusive and diverse industry? It will be a work in progress, but Models Trust is urging brands to work together with them to help improve working conditions, as well as giving models the opportunity to anonymously feedback on their experiences backstage. “I feel part of a sisterhood, which is essential for blossoming and surviving the industry in terms of emotional and practical support.”
With age and maturity on her side now, Mélodie explains she has learned there is space to co-exist and support one another. It was a strange feeling that gave me a lot of insecurity and fear, especially as I grew up in a Black dominated community with a lot of solidarity,” she shares. “The pressure to compete with other Black models got to me mentally. She recalls agents and those backstage constantly highlighting that she was the only model of colour on set reiterating how proud she should feel to have got the spot - as if there could only ever be one Black model per show. It seems that the industry likes Black models, but only if they conform to a Eurocentric look,” she comments.įor Mélodie, it’s not just hair and makeup that poses a challenge for Black models. “I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars every year on my hair.
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Like many Black models, Mélodie decided to get a weave, partly to help protect her natural hair, but mainly so she could have a long, straight style that hairdressers knew how to work with. It’s only just starting to grow back now, 11 years later.” No stylist knew what to do with my curls and after 47 shows of repeated heat, aggression and the wrong products, my hair broke off. “I lost half my hair during my first season at 17 years old. "That isn’t the job they’ve been hired to do."įor Caribbean model Mélodie Monrose, Nyasha and Renée's accounts of the industry are all too familiar. “Black models deserve to arrive at their place of work with the tools they need and a prepared team around them - not have to spend their own money and extra time to make sure they’re styled beforehand," says Renée. Not only has this caused Renée to suffer the pressure of being both model and hair stylist, it's also meant she has had to foot the bill for the best hair styling products to complete the looks requested. It's resulted in spending hours the night before straightening it, and waking up early to craft it into shape. As time has gone on, the model has increasingly found herself being told to style her own hair in advance for a shoot.
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Renée acknowledges that her " biracial background and lighter skin tone" has given her a privilege in terms of makeup artists being able to match her foundation, but she's unable to say the same where her hair is concerned. That was his solution,” shares renowned model, Renee Mittelstaedt. “On one occasion, a stylist decided just to straighten the very front part of my hair and cover the rest with a hoodie. Like many Black models, Nyasha is not short of stories highlighting the mistreatment and challenges models of colour face backstage including one particularly traumatic experience at London Fashion Week when she was just 16 years old, that has stuck with her ever since. She is now a Models Trust Diversity Ambassador and the founder of CreatiValues, a safe space for Black models to support one another - and it’s her troubling experiences that have led her here. Nyasha started modelling in 2009, at the age of 15, and quickly made a name for herself walking the runway for major fashion houses. "I was left with no choice but to cut it all off." But no-one said a thing, as if it was normal," she recalls. “My hair was completely fried by the end. It didn't appear to deter the hairdresser, however, who continued her assault with a 400 degree straightening iron, tugging and torturing every precious curl on Nyasha's head. She bit her tongue as the stench intensified, along with the damage. A waft of singed hair began to circle model Nyasha Matonhodze as she sat silently in the stylist's chair.
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