THE BLACK

FROM SHOWS TO FASHION, THE (highly criticised) OBSESSION TO INVENT THE BLACK

Since Michelle Obama conquered the White House, the colour black increasingly affirms itself as a trend.

Didn’t you notice that?

Vogue “paints” the top model. It arouses controversy.

For The Guardian it is “Outrageous and offensive”.

The “Blacking up” o, painting the face in black comes back to fashion.

Vogue France director Carine Roitfeld and the photographer Steve Klein engaged model Laura Stone (very pale and very blond), blacked her up and styled her with ethnic accessories.

In Australia a group of five singers blacked their faces to portray the Jackson Five and the show was flooded with criticism.

Since the eighteen-hundred “blackface” the use of brown make up and afro hair wigs has been common to allow white actors to play black characters, often with an ironic intention, sometimes disparaging and more or less racist.