Today on Tyra...

Thursday, October 4th

"Model Blackouts"

Has black become unfashionable? Tyra addresses the “Model Blackout,” a recent controversy surrounding the lack of African-American models at this year’s Fashion Week in New York and in the modeling industry overall. Traver Rains and Richie Rich, designers of the Heatherette fashion line, discuss why they like to use black models and why other designers do not. They opened and closed their show with Chanel Iman, a 16-year-old model Tyra mentors. Chanel then joins Tyra to discuss the challenges she faces and what she did to get the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour’s, attention. Then, supermodel Alek Wek speaks openly about the roadblocks she faced in the industry as a black model and lets cameras follow her to see what a day in the life of a supermodel is really like. Tyra and Alek also share behind-the-scenes footage from their recent Ebony cover with fellow models and entrepreneurs Iman and Kimora Lee Simmons. Alek then talks about her new book that chronicles her struggle as a Sudanese refugee and how she escaped the country to become a fashion model. Plus, Alek shows her new handbag line and surprises one of her biggest fans, a woman who also lived through the civil war in Sudan.

I'm not a big fan of Tyra's show (I think she's a little too egocentric) but this was a pretty good show. Chanel Iman was adorable and it was nice seeing her on the show with her mom (who is Black and Korean) on the show.I always love seeing Alek Wek. It was also interesting to see Trevor Rains & Richie Rich of Heatherette talk about their decision to use 10 (!) Black models on their runway this season.

ETA: Clip of Chanel Iman from the show