BLACK BODIES: REFLECTIONS ON MODELING, FASHION AND BLACK WOMEN

An accessible, well-documented essay rethinking the place of black female bodies in fashion... and act.

Christelle Bakima Poundza has spent more than half her life examining catwalks and collecting fashion magazines. Hours on the catwalk and hundreds of kilos of glossy paper later, the conclusion is clear: she is rarely seen in the images produced by French fashion... without this diminishing his desire to be part of this world that is said to be so closed.

In this essay, written in the first person, Christelle uses the case of black models on the Paris catwalks as a magnifying mirror of the black female condition in France. She reflects on her position as a young black French woman in the fashion industry, and questions the relationships of domination that permeate it through the prism of race, gender and class.

Her text invites us to celebrate the black female bodies that make and have made fashion, while highlighting the political choices that will have to be made if the most marginalized are to become a lasting part of the landscape. So that, at last, we can be a society.