The Male Model

As I step back from a semester of writing on the issues surrounding models in the fashion industry, it strikes me that many of the topics I’ve covered—body image and plus-size modeling in particular, but race as well to a degree—center primarily around the discussion of female models. But what of the male model? Do they face the same kinds of problems as women, the same restrictions on race and size?

Statistics on the racial makeup of the male modeling industry are hard to come by, but an informal survey of Models.com’s top 50 male models presents us with six black models and four Asian models. It’s a substantial fraction, comparable to the five black female models and six Asian female models among the female top 50, and one that would have been unimaginable several years ago—but as is true for female models, tokenism within male modeling is still at play. “I can count on one hand the number of times when, if it hasn’t been a BET [Black Entertainment Television] fashion show or a ‘black’ fashion show, that there’s been more than one black male model on the shoot,” said Brent Zachery, a well-known black model, in an interview with The Washington Post.

From April to Lea

Earlier this year, Barneys New York unveiled "Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters," its Spring 2014 campaign, which featured relatively well-known names like Ines Rau and Valentijn de Hingh, alongside a smattering of newcomers. The 17 models shot for the campaign looked in large part as you'd expect for a high-end fashion campaign: slender, elegant, beautifully clothed creatures draped languorously against fences or over furniture. But the men and women of "Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters" differ in one small way from your typical model—they are all transgender.

In reality, the fashion world has played unwitting host to a number of transgender models over the years, beginning in the 1960s with April Ashley, a British woman who enjoyed a fruitful modeling career, appearing in illustrious publications like Vogue before tabloids revealed that she had been born a man. Others followed in her footsteps: Caroline "Tula" Cossey, Lauren Foster, and, more recently in 2003, Barbara Diop—all of whom were featured in Vogue before being outed, invariably leading to the decline of their careers in the face of backlash from the media and the public.

A Plus-Size Problem

With the fashion industry under fire in recent years for its reliance on increasingly thin models, a new market for their plus-size counterparts has begun to emerge. Designers are starting to recognize the potential economic benefits of including average-sized women in their shows, and as a result, fuller-figured models such as Crystal Renn, Robyn Lawley, and Marquita Pring are finding success on the runway and in editorial work.

Dying to Be Beautiful

Whenever I flip through a magazine, go shopping, or scroll through post-Fashion Week photos on the internet, I find myself inundated with images of beautiful clothing worn by equally beautiful women. Some are doll-faced, like the doe-eyed Edie Campbell; others are glamorous, like the appropriately named Arizona Muse. Some possess an unconventional sort of allure—Daphne Groeneveld's full lips and gap-toothed smile, for example, hold particular sway over the fashion world. But all have one commonality: 34-24-34, the bust, waist, and hip measurements of female runway models all around the world.

The topic of weight and body image in fashion is a commonly discussed one, and it is no secret that the above measurements indicate, for women who are often upwards of 5'9" in height, an alarmingly low body mass index and weight—sometimes fatally so. The death of model Luisel Ramos during Montevideo Fashion Week from heart failure due to anorexia nervosa brought the issue to the spotlight in 2006, while the passing of her sister Eliana Ramos, also a model, allegedly from the same cause just six months later catapulted the controversy to a fever pitch.

Race and the Runway

For an industry lauded for its forward-looking creativity, there remains one surprisingly backward aspect of the trillion-dollar world of fashion: race. Though strides have been made in other areas where fashion once lagged, with plus-sized model Crystal Renn and transexual model Lea T achieving widespread recognition, casting directors continue to dismiss and rationalize the lack of racial diversity on runways and in major brand campaigns.

The field has, of course, historically been dominated by white models, but things seemed to be looking up in the ’80s as black icons Iman, Naomi Campbell, and Tyra Banks burst onto the scene and walked for big names like Versace, Chanel, and Fendi. However, as Kate Moss rose to prominence in the early ’90s, the industry as a whole gravitated increasingly toward her translucently pale, waifish aesthetic, effectively shutting the door once again to models of color.