This month for our ongoing Econ Extra Credit series, we’re diving into the film “Invisible Beauty.” It’s about the life and legacy of fashion icon Bethann Hardison, a force in the industry.
Hardison has played a huge roll in pushing for more diversity in fashion. The model, activist and entrepreneur helped launch the careers of some of the most successful models we know today. But diversity in fashion has proven to be a fickle thing over the years.
So we take you back to the 1980s: The industry’s embrace of more diversity in the ’70s had faded away, and the editorial model — which consisted of mainly white faces — moved to the runway, disrupting careers for many models of color. Marketplace’s David Brancaccio spoke with Hardison. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
David Brancaccio: I’m really struck by those early frames in the film. Your first runway show back in the 1970s. You’re walking for Chester Weinberg, and you’re not a person who gets too nervous or loses heart, but you were starting to question things at that moment, weren’t are you?
Bethann Hardison: It was quite something that he would like me, think of me, because I’ve been to others and they were like, “I liked you. But you’re not right for me,” because I was a different kind of girl coming along that time. I was really very, very happy, but same time, you know, you’re nervous. It’s like, you know, going on the stage for the first time in front of an audience that you don’t know. And they don’t know you.
Brancaccio: But it’s even more than that, right? Because you’re breaking almost a barrier there. And you don’t know what the reaction is going to be. You don’t know if you’ll be accepted or rejected in that setting.
Hardison: Exactly — but you also don’t know that you’re breaking a barrier. There were other girls of color, but they were much more sophisticated that worked on that avenue. You could tell the audience was uncomfortable because, there was starting to be some talk.
I knew it was because of me because that was the only time it was happening. But I didn’t think it was because of my color or anything like that. I just thought, “Well, I’m not that type.” [Laughs] You know, more of that than anything else. Of course, later, you can sort of add things up, if you want to go down that road.
Brancaccio: So how long did it take from that moment, until a place where you got the full applause, where people really got what it was that you represented and what you were doing?
Hardison: Maybe because I had people like Willie Smith in my life, you know, well-known designer at that time, it was just an experience. But when it came down to like something like Versailles, that’s when you get your great applause, because the program goes up in the air and everything in the world is like more magnificent. And the idea of it really was so surprising because it was 10 girls of color. But 10 still is a lot when people are not used to seeing hardly any in that region. And in the end it became just a wonderful experience for everyone. And the good news about it too is that it influenced certain designers to want to use girls color. And I think it was a great, not only showmanship of how Americans do things, but also see these beautiful caravans mixed all together, it was a cultural shift.
Brancaccio: Would you say that some of the significances of Versailles are on themes of diversity and on models that didn’t look the old way? And you had a famous agency that had a lot, it had a roster. I was looking through that roster, loads of Black models and more.
Hardison: No, loads of white models and black models, that’s what I had. I knew what to do. I knew I had to come with the same product and competition to what was out there. I couldn’t come with, like a Black model agency. That was never going to work. Because that wasn’t a time or opportunity to do so because it’s not like there’s that many models are selling in that way. When I started as a model agency, which believe me, I never wanted to have a model agency, when I wind up doing this modeling agency. And I knew I had to do it a certain way to please me, No. 1, and also to make sure I took care of the kids.
You know, whatever happened in the ’70s, they started, you know, leaning away from it in the ’80s because Calvin Klein put the print girl on his runway and took out all the runway girls. So that changed the game and that put nothing but white girls on the runway because that’s who was in the editorials.
Brancaccio: Well, Ms. Hardison, you’re saying something fascinating and problematic, right? You’re saying that models for magazines tended to be less diverse, because publishing was publishing with its biases and discriminatory impulses. So when you switched from putting models who were in magazines up on the runways, it had an effect?
Hardison: Oh, absolutely. At that very moment, there weren’t any Black girls other than maybe Iman, Pat Cleveland once in a while, but didn’t have hardly any that were really working editorially.
A man named Regis Pagniez came in to start American Elle. That changed the game. This magazine out of France comes into New York, all of a sudden, by mid-’80s, late ’80s to start seeing girls of color in those magazines, which we hadn’t seen before.
Brancaccio: You know, when you look back at the history, over the decades dealing with diversifying fashion, diversifying modeling, it’s in fits and starts.
Hardison: Yeah, because you shouldn’t just think you can lay down, it’s all right, someone calls you and says you, “No, no, you gotta comeback. Look what’s happening.” You hope even now, but it doesn’t do the same thing. I think I actually wrote those letters in 2014. In the letters that I wrote, just basically calling out the individual design houses that were negligent in incorporating more than one, if none, models of color on their runways is for consistently season after season after season. And so those kinds of things were important to do. And since then, things have changed.
Brancaccio: It was courageous, you were calling out fashion houses by name. What was the deal? They were hiring an occasional Black model, that’s what it had come to?
Hardison: They weren’t hiring any to be on their runways. And if they did, maybe one, but it would be consistent like that. That’s an imbalance. That’s crazy. That’s just obvious. And you see that there’s certain houses that are really prime, that [are] really important, that just are just comfortable. It happens to them, you know, they follow the yellow brick road. Some one designer does it and it’s a good idea that time, then other people just fall into line and follow that. And they can stay on that train way past many good stops. The most important thing was when I sent the actual letters to the individual councils of fashion, I also sent that same letter to the press. So when they got it the press got it.
Brancaccio: You know, we’ve been talking about really the industry side of this. What do you think on the other side here in 2024 for the market? Are you finding people who buy fashion, people who are interested in fashion, the audience for fashion publications, are they ahead of where the industry is? Are they demanding diversity?
Hardison: If you are revolutionary, I don’t think you really care about fashion per se. You may care about something wrong, not being right, you know that you need to go in and speak on. But this whole thing when people say, “You need to boycott,” and all that — I always laugh at that because I’m not a boycotter. I’m going to try to switch the cards around, and make something else happen, get the other guy to see the right and the wrong that they’re sitting in. Although I’ve watched young people — younger people — actually go up against something like Starbucks, and they really changed the game. So they go boycotting. But fashion is such a different game. I don’t know. I oftentimes wonder what they see.
But right now, everyone is joyous because there’s representation in the game. You see the models of color, you see them consistently in advertising, in editorial and on the runways, so there’s no reason to boycott. For those who think there is, I find myself feeling very offended after all the good work we’ve done.
