HAS BLACK BECOME UNFASHIONABLE?: BET News explores the decline of African American fashion models tonight at 8:30

New York, NY - According to targetmarketnews.com, Black women in the United States spend more than $20 billion on apparel each year.

Unfortunately the runways, magazine spreads and the image/beauty industry at large are increasingly ignoring their buying power and their existence by choosing instead to market an Eastern-European form of beauty as the standard.

This global decrease in the use of African Americans models in top campaigns and in major fashion shows has sparked the question: has Black become unfashionable?

Tonight at 8:30 PM, BET News goes behind the scenes of New York's Fashion Week to find the answer in a half hour special, FASHION BLACKOUT. Top Black industry insiders, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Naomi Campbell, Bethann Hardison, Tyson Beckford, Tracy Reese, André Leon Talley and many others sound off about the sharp decline in African American images in the fashion industry, the blatant racism and their plans on how to keep the Black model from becoming extinct.

At New York's September 2007 Fashion Week the runways were dominated by white faces. In fact, Black faces were more absent from the runways than some fashion insiders have seen since the '60s. Of the 101 runway shows, more than 1/3 employed no Black models; most of the others used just one or two.

Blacks fared no better overseas: When the fashion caravan moved to London, Paris and Milan, the most influential shows -- from Prada to Jil Sander to Balenciaga to Chloé and Chanel -- made it appear as if someone had hung a sign reading: No Blacks Need Apply.

So is the fashion industry racist or are Blacks simply not in season? FASHION BLACKOUT will explore the issues and how the exclusion of an entire race has a negative effect on Black women and their sense of self-worth.

For more on FASHION BLACKOUT viewers can go online to www.bet.com/OnTV/BETShows/fnbo.htm

Source:eurweb