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Carlos Campos to Use All-Black Cast in First Womenswear Show

Carlos CamposPhoto: Getty Images

Menswear designer Carlos Campos is showing his first women’s collection Monday during Fashion Week, and he’s just announced he’ll use only black models in the runway show at the Altman Building. The New York Observer received a press release about the show, which explained supermodel Iman inspired the casting decision and described the collection as “Jet set rockstar — think David Bowie and Iman on holiday in the South of France.”

But ironically, Iman told us she had reservations about Italian Vogue’s all-black issue because she didn’t want it to reduce black models to a “caricature.” The Observer asks, “We’re all for seeing more diversity in fashion, but should we interpret Mr. Campos’s show as having diversity for the sake of diversity, or just a publicity stunt?” Considering the Campos camp sent out a press release about this, we’re inclined to choose the latter. That said, we don’t also doubt Campos genuinely believes in promoting diversity on the runways. But we’ve already seen Sean John and Dsquared2 do this. So maybe the truly innovative thing to do this season would be to cast a group of models that’s actually, well, diverse.

Carlos Campos To Use Only Black Models in His Debut Women’s Collection [NYO]
Related: Iman Doesn’t Want Black Models to Be a ‘Caricature’
White Models Mostly Absent From Dsquared2 Show, and Could Be From Lanvin, Too

Carlos Campos to Use All-Black Cast in First Womenswear Show