Where:AMN Coworking Space ,Abidjan,Cote d’Ivoire,West Africa

Who: Model 225 |www.model225.com | x AMN |www.africaincorpmedia.co | x Pierre Boulay x Ange Bia x Samuel Ouedraogo x Carlalie Okou x Madoussou Kone x Cedrick Aloys x Franck Baye x Ulrich Dah , Carole Yavo x Karen Kacou and many more.

When: Saturday the 14th of January 2012

Related articles

• |Winner BDLM Saison Seche Casting|Fanta Kone (businessdelamode.com)

Too young to really remember the struggle for apartheid, they’re less politicised and claim that their “struggle” is now one against blandness and conformity – to them, it’s all about partying, self-expression and challenging stereotypes.|Read more |

HAIR:Black

EYES: Brown

HEIGHT 174CM/5′8.”

BUST: 31 cm

WAIST: 38 cm

HIPS :33 cm

SHOES EU/ US/UK

Official website:CaroleGakpa.businessdelamode.com
BDLM where the Web and African global fashion converge

www.businessdelamode.com
Company Overview
BDLM is part of the AMN network of sites .
BDLM publishes content on the global African fashion scene with a focus on Ivory Coast retail,fashion trends, styles ,models,and couturiers.

BDLM(AMN) also plans to organize off-line events that will benefit the Abidjan fashion industry .

HAIR :Black

EYES :Brown

HEIGHT: 174CM/5′8.”

BUST :31CM

WAIST: 38CM

HIPS :33 CM

SHOES EU/ US/UK:N/A

BDLM where the Web and African global fashion converge

Official website: www.fantakone.businessdelamode.com

www.businessdelamode.com
Company Overview
BDLM is part of the AMN network of sites .
BDLM publishes content on the global African fashion scene with a focus on Ivory Coast retail,fashion trends, styles ,models,and couturiers.

BDLM(AMN) also plans to organize off-line events that will benefit the Abidjan fashion industry .

Related articles

• |Event|Ghana Fashion Week (businessdelamode.com)
• |Event|Swahili Fashion Week 2011-East And Central Africa’s Annual Largest and Biggest Fashion Platform, (businessdelamode.com)

BDLM held a casting to search fresh new faces that the media house AMN ( Africaincorp Media Network) could promote via its platforms and the use of P.R 2.0.

Agencies,photographers,model management companies,magazine editors ought not  to travel anymore to Ivory Coast seeking a new talent to usher in the industry.

BDLM will provide exciting,determined and raw new talent to the African and  international modeling industry.

Related articles

• |Event|Swahili Fashion Week 2011-East And Central Africa’s Annual Largest and Biggest Fashion Platform, (businessdelamode.com)
• |Events|Africa Fashion Week New York 2011 (businessdelamode.com)
• |Event|Ghana Fashion Week (businessdelamode.com)

The International Photography Awards conducts an annual competition for professional, non- professional, and student photographers on a global scale, creating one of the most ambitious and comprehensive competitions in the photography world today.The categories are :

Advertising Photographer of the Year
Architectural Photographer of the Year
Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year
Editorial Photographer of the Year
Photography Book of the Year (professionals only)
Fine Art Photographer of the Year
Nature Photographer of the Year
People Photographer of the Year
Photographer of the Year in the Special category

-The competition is judged by a board of esteemed photo editors, curators, gallery owners, art directors-
Official website

Related articles

• Travel Photographer of the Year Award (oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com)

Kasha Magazine brings together the ideas of three Fashion minds namely Leon Muli the Photography Genius, Wambui Mukenyi the Fashion designer, Nancie Mwai the Fashion Blogger and Stylist and the designs of Kehl Design Agency. The three together with an incredible list of professionals bring you a breath of fresh creative air in the Kenyan Fashion industry.

Official website:Kasha Magazine

Image by Africaincorp via Flickr

Editor’s note :BDLM shares with you this 3 year old editoria work by fashion designer,jet setter,real estate agent,Jaja Nwokeabia [Click on the post title to read the full article]L

Iet us say that  the overall tone of the story,  is not so much about racism,cultural bias or flagrant discrimination [ racial,economic,cultural,personal] but really about entering the Fashion industry with a Blueprint and keep the eyes on prize while enjoying the thrill of the hunt.

TheBusinessdelamode.com will only speak about the actions,business models, persons, mindsets and behaviours that are conducive to market takeover wether in the short term or long term [ actually both]. While Naomi can serve as bet, the true story is about Alek ,Noella and many other fashion professional to milk the cow that is the global fashion industry.

Also we would like to point out that the fashion industry can be to African fashion professionals what Hip Hop is to music profesionals , a platform from which they can spin-off side businesses,endorsements and the likes.

@ the end we should come full circle and see how the fashion,music ,media and advertisement worlds of Africa/diaspora should come together to cause the genesis of profitable ventures.

“There is a dirty little secret that’s plagued the seemingly beautiful world of the fashion industry for years: Racism doesn’t just exist—it thrives. And these days for models of color, it’s worse than ever. Some of the biggest names in fashion are now speaking out about it.[ racism is there to stay, as long as the future decision makers of the industry do not progressed as human beings they would never change their ego-based bias and discrimination. How do we generate revenues in spite of this is the question we must occupy our mind with]

At a recent forum on blacks in fashion in New York City that was attended by Iman, Bethann Hardison, Liya Kebede, Andre Leon Talley, Tracy Reese and other prominent names in fashion, supermodel Naomi Campbell recounted how even at the top of supermodel-mania in the mid-90s, she had to rely on the threats of her white counterparts and designer friends to get work. On one occasion, she said, Christy Turlington told Dolce and Gabanna that if they did not book Naomi she would not work with them either. She got the cover of French Vogue only after Algerian-born designer Yves Saint Laurent threatened to pull his advertising, she said.

While these accounts may seem surprising coming from one of the most successful black supermodels in history, such instances of racism in the industry is not rare. Recent fashion weeks in fashion capitals throughout the world and mainstream fashion glossies on newsstands signify a white-out of the modeling industry, where only one standard of beauty is being endorsed: the European.[ the European model industry will always favor standard of beauty that the consumers who happen to be white will relate to, How successful have been black/models in the Asian fashion industry ?]

One exception to this backlash against black beauty has been Sudan-born supermodel, Alek Wek. At a recent book signing for her new novel, Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, Wek said that instead of hindering her, her dark skin and different look was embraced by the fashion industry. When she first started modeling around ten years ago, she only went to go-sees where clients advertised for models, not “models of color,” she said, to avoid the typecasting traps of the fashion industry.[ International models are given the opportunity to work in the Western fashion industry based on the western culture embrace of foreign/exotic standard of beauty]

Paying attention to the game not the players, is how Alek climbed to the top. Many people fail to realize that fashion only makes up a small fraction of the modeling business. Catalogue, body part and commercial modeling are also highly lucrative–albeit less high-profile—areas of the industry.[ Paying attention to the game and the universal qualities that make any model/brand marketable and show that you posses it. Also could expand on the many level of the fashion industry and the need for representation by Black/African there from various modeling niches,to fashion & modeling sub-industries,photographer,make up artist,fashion journalist,stylist,design director etc. without forgetting the upstream players such as advertisers,video & movie producers,African fashion and lifestyle magazines.]

These days, racism in the industry wears several disguises. Its source remains a topic of debate. Some blame modeling agencies for not sending out enough black models for castings. Others argue that model agencies are merely suppliers and that fashion houses, magazines, catalogues and advertisers simply do not demand models of color.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one model recalls fitting several dresses during a New York Fashion Week Spring 2008 casting for a Los Angeles-based designer’s show. The designer hired the model on the spot, but later sent the model’s booker and e-mail saying she decided to pass her up. The designer claimed the model was “toothless and had bad acne.” Such fabrications, the model said, are ploys designers and clients use to blacklist black models without looking overtly racist.

Top model Noella Coursaris, whose background is Cypriot-Congolese, says it’s about time people such as Naomi speak up about the problem because it affects more people than just blacks.

“The problem isn’t only about black models,” Noella said. “It’s a general problem, for Asians–for Indian people. We should be all united, and the client should have to see beyond our colors.”

The recent inaugural issue of Vogue India caused uproar because its cover featured a white, blonde top model in the center of two Indian models. The message was clear.

With her caramel skin, hazel eyes, and a cascading raven mane Noella represents the diverse beauty emerging from the African continent. Her look contrasts from the rigid, token “African” aesthetic the fashion industry set and has long fed to the public. We’ve all seen the stereotype: Amazonian models with dark skin, long limbs and bald or low-shaved hair. However, it is an incomplete and even distorted ideal of African beauty—a manufactured product that even industry players no longer buy. After years of reproducing Alek Wek look-alike, the fashion industry has chosen as its black model-of-moment the young, raven haired, almond-eyed Chanel Iman. Touted by heavyweights Iman and Andre Leon Talley, she was the only model of color on a Vogue cover chronicling today’s crop of supermodels. Her photograph was on the inner side of the fold-out cover, inconspicuous on newsstands.

Three years after booking her breakthrough campaign with luxury lingerie giant Agent Provocateur, Noella has enjoyed a relatively successful career with modeling agencies in London and New York. Although she insists she has never experienced overt racism in the industry, she admits to having been typecast.

“We go on specific casting sometimes, where they need only mixed-race or black models,” she said.

Models typically have a short-shelf life, with most retiring in their mid-to late-twenties. But for a disproportionate number of black models, it seems the expiration date comes much sooner than their Caucasian counterparts. Frustrated with the shut doors and lack of work, many move on to other careers. Naomi and Alek are exceptions. Still, Alek advises that, “as a model, one has to constantly evolve.” After all, who wants to be in their thirties competing with waifs half their age?

In addition to designing a successful line of fine leather accessories and handbags, wek1933, and publishing a best-selling autobiography, Alek has started a non-profit to encourage education in her native Sudan . W.E.K (Working to Educate Kids) provides funds, supplies and educational support to needy children and young adults in Sudan and New York City.

Noella has also launched this year a non-profit in her native Democratic Republic of Congo to empower girls through education. The Georges Malaika Foundation, named after her late father, provides grants, sponsorships, provisions for tuition & school materials, and school equipment to girls aged 5-18.

And Naomi Campbell has been quoted as saying she would like to open her own modeling agency in Kenya to redress discrimination in the industry.

Iet me share the overall tone of the story, it is not so much about racism,cultural bias or flagrant discrimination [ racial,economic,cultural,personal] but really about entering the Fashion industry with a Blueprint and keep the eyes on prize while enjoying the thrill of the hunt.

Africaincorp will only speak about the actions,business models, persons, mindsets and behaviours that are conducive to market takeover wether in the short term or long term [ actually both]. While Naomi can serve as bet, the true story is about Alek ,Noella and many other fashion professional to milk the cow that is the western fashion industry.

Also we would like to point out that the fashion industry can be to African fashion professionals what Hip Hop is to music profesionals , a platform from which they can spin-off side businesses,endorsements and the likes.

@ the end we should come full circle and see how the fashion,music ,media and advertisement worlds of Africa/diaspora should come together toccause the genesis of profitable ventures.

The Fashion Industry’s Great Whiteout [ Can the title be revised, we are not really addressing Racism per say, we are addressing the mentality Black/African models should have in order to generate revenues from the fashion industry pie]

Jaja Nwokeabia

There is a dirty little secret that’s plagued the seemingly beautiful world of the fashion industry for years: Racism doesn’t just exist—it thrives. And these days for models of color, it’s worse than ever. Some of the biggest names in fashion are now speaking out about it.[ racism is there to stay, as long as the future decision makers of the industry do not progressed as human beings they would never change their ego-based bias and discrimination. How do we generate revenues in spite of this is the question we must occupy our mind with]

At a recent forum on blacks in fashion in New York City that was attended by Iman, Bethann Hardison, Liya Kebede, Andre Leon Talley, Tracy Reese and other prominent names in fashion, supermodel Naomi Campbell recounted how even at the top of supermodel-mania in the mid-90s, she had to rely on the threats of her white counterparts and designer friends to get work. On one occasion, she said, Christy Turlington told Dolce and Gabanna that if they did not book Naomi she would not work with them either. She got the cover of French Vogue only after Algerian-born designer Yves Saint Laurent threatened to pull his advertising, she said.

While these accounts may seem surprising coming from one of the most successful black supermodels in history, such instances of racism in the industry is not rare. Recent fashion weeks in fashion capitals throughout the world and mainstream fashion glossies on newsstands signify a white-out of the modeling industry, where only one standard of beauty is being endorsed: the European.[ the European model industry will always favor standard of beauty that the consumers who happen to be white will relate to, How successful have been black/models in the Asian fashion industry ?]

One exception to this backlash against black beauty has been Sudan-born supermodel, Alek Wek. At a recent book signing for her new novel, Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, Wek said that instead of hindering her, her dark skin and different look was embraced by the fashion industry. When she first started modeling around ten years ago, she only went to go-sees where clients advertised for models, not “models of color,” she said, to avoid the typecasting traps of the fashion industry.[ International models are given the opportunity to work in the Western fashion industry based on the western culture embrace of foreign/exotic standard of beauty]

Paying attention to the game not the players, is how Alek climbed to the top. Many people fail to realize that fashion only makes up a small fraction of the modeling business. Catalogue, body part and commercial modeling are also highly lucrative–albeit less high-profile—areas of the industry.[ Paying attention to the game and the universal qualities that make any model/brand marketable and show that you posses it. Also could expand on the many level of the fashion industry and the need for representation by Black/African there from various modeling niches,to fashion & modeling sub-industries,photographer,make up artist,fashion journalist,stylist,design director etc. without forgetting the upstream players such as advertisers,video & movie producers,African fashion and lifestyle magazines.]

These days, racism in the industry wears several disguises. Its source remains a topic of debate. Some blame modeling agencies for not sending out enough black models for castings. Others argue that model agencies are merely suppliers and that fashion houses, magazines, catalogues and advertisers simply do not demand models of color.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one model recalls fitting several dresses during a New York Fashion Week Spring 2008 casting for a Los Angeles-based designer’s show. The designer hired the model on the spot, but later sent the model’s booker and e-mail saying she decided to pass her up. The designer claimed the model was “toothless and had bad acne.” Such fabrications, the model said, are ploys designers and clients use to blacklist black models without looking overtly racist.

Top model Noella Coursaris, whose background is Cypriot-Congolese, says it’s about time people such as Naomi speak up about the problem because it affects more people than just blacks.

“The problem isn’t only about black models,” Noella said. “It’s a general problem, for Asians–for Indian people. We should be all united, and the client should have to see beyond our colors.”

The recent inaugural issue of Vogue India caused uproar because its cover featured a white, blonde top model in the center of two Indian models. The message was clear.

With her caramel skin, hazel eyes, and a cascading raven mane Noella represents the diverse beauty emerging from the African continent. Her look contrasts from the rigid, token “African” aesthetic the fashion industry set and has long fed to the public. We’ve all seen the stereotype: Amazonian models with dark skin, long limbs and bald or low-shaved hair. However, it is an incomplete and even distorted ideal of African beauty—a manufactured product that even industry players no longer buy. After years of reproducing Alek Wek look-alike, the fashion industry has chosen as its black model-of-moment the young, raven haired, almond-eyed Chanel Iman. Touted by heavyweights Iman and Andre Leon Talley, she was the only model of color on a Vogue cover chronicling today’s crop of supermodels. Her photograph was on the inner side of the fold-out cover, inconspicuous on newsstands.

Three years after booking her breakthrough campaign with luxury lingerie giant Agent Provocateur, Noella has enjoyed a relatively successful career with modeling agencies in London and New York. Although she insists she has never experienced overt racism in the industry, she admits to having been typecast.

“We go on specific casting sometimes, where they need only mixed-race or black models,” she said.

Models typically have a short-shelf life, with most retiring in their mid-to late-twenties. But for a disproportionate number of black models, it seems the expiration date comes much sooner than their Caucasian counterparts. Frustrated with the shut doors and lack of work, many move on to other careers. Naomi and Alek are exceptions. Still, Alek advises that, “as a model, one has to constantly evolve.” After all, who wants to be in their thirties competing with waifs half their age?

In addition to designing a successful line of fine leather accessories and handbags, wek1933, and publishing a best-selling autobiography, Alek has started a non-profit to encourage education in her native Sudan . W.E.K (Working to Educate Kids) provides funds, supplies and educational support to needy children and young adults in Sudan and New York City.

Noella has also launched this year a non-profit in her native Democratic Republic of Congo to empower girls through education. The Georges Malaika Foundation, named after her late father, provides grants, sponsorships, provisions for tuition & school materials, and school equipment to girls aged 5-18.

And Naomi Campbell has been quoted as saying she would like to open her own modeling agency in Kenya to redress discrimination in the industry.

Author:Jaja Nwokeabia

Related articles

• CFDA Awards 2011 fashion (themadeleinewhirl.wordpress.com)
• |Fashion House|Gloria Wavamunno-To Re-Define and Further Establish African Fashion (businessdelamode.com)

Official Website |in French |:Winkler Magazine