Lineisy Montero is not the just black face on the catwalk but it is her hairstyle which sets her aside from in contrast to the longer tresses of other models
Paris the fad week is in full swing, with one face emerging to expatiate on the spring/summer of 2016. Lineisy Montero, the 19-year-old maquette from the Dominican Republic, has walked in all the most significant reveals this season, from Balmain to Balenciaga. She is being volleyed as an example that the catwalk, which is traditionally dominated by diluted, blonde white models, is finally embracing diversity.
Montero has featured in diverse than 50 shows since mid-September, and is instantly recognisable for her cut b stop afro. While she can be seen as part of a wider rise of sulky faces on the catwalk – ranging from Binx Walton and Joan Babies to Malaika Firth and Jourdan Dunn – it is this hairstyle, in diverge to the longer tresses of these other models, that readies her apart. In March, Montero’s debut on the Prada catwalk – her ahead runway show – saw a social media storm, and brought the afro, so associated with 1970s Unconscionable Panthers and civil rights activists such as Angela Davis, again into the fashion conversation. There are now several other sitters with afros, including Karly Loyce. Montero, nonetheless, remains the poster girl for natural afro hair in style, with her popularity this Paris fashion week a happening in point.
In August, she covered Teen Vogue with the excerpt “I just like being me.” It is this sense of authenticity that has suffer fromed fashion’s attention. “Black hair is considered to be quite close to work with if not relaxed,” says Marie Claire’s older style editor Des Lewis. “Last season, we saw hairstylists clinching the beauty of natural afro hair and not changing their hairstyle to be acceptable the show hair. Instead, they’re now ‘keeping it real.’”
Elle UK’s command content director Kenya Hunt believes this guides fashion representing wider society more. “We’re just animate in a time where we’re finally starting to see media reflect its audience in a serious, non-tokenistic way,” she says. “I was in New York last week and walked days a news stand that had black women on the covers of seven odd magazines. I’ve never seen that before.” Katy Moseley, a spokeswoman for Montero’s intercession Next, believes the model represents this change. “Her unlimited appeal is refreshing,” she says, “bringing diversity into the main of the show season and campaigns of the future.”
This increase in extent goes beyond skin tone. Fashion this opportunity ripe has moved on from the so-called “cookie cutter” model, where each crumpet out on the catwalk looks like the one before, to embracing individuality. This can be seen in the celebrity this season of shaven-headed models Ruth Bell and Kris Gottschalk and pint-sized actress Zoë Kravitz boardwalk in the Balenciaga show alongside models, and Beth Ditto tramp for Marc Jacobs in New York. Lewis credits social method, an anything goes platform, for playing a part in this. Investigate hopes it is an actual shift, rather than a fad. “It’s not just nearby promoting diversity of race or skin tone, but really boast the full breadth of womanhood – we’re seeing this with paragons ranging in not just race, but size and age,” she says. “Fashion be captivated bies a rotating trend but I’m hopeful that this change we’re manage is more than that.”
We may still be some distance from a state of affairs where diversity is a given rather than an exception on the catwalks. Vital shows like Christian Dior still only featured one foul girl, and Montero’s afro has been covered up at shows containing Balmain, where her hair was styled in the ponytail that all of the produces wore. “Each season there will be one or two non-white dames that break through but there is still a long way to go in the past it is a level playing field,” says Lewis. “I look into consideration to the day when a model’s skin colour is invisible because it becomes the normal.”
