Auntie Fashion

Yasmeen Ghauri

I don’t know why I’ve been so nostalgic lately when it comes to the supermodels of the early 90s.  I guess it’s the fact that they aren’t all the same color.  Maybe I’ve been visiting the girls at Jezebel too much.

Here’s a photo of the lovely Yasmeen Ghauri.  According to Wikipedia, Yasmeen is half Pakistani on her father’s side, and half German on her mother’s side.  As the story goes, she was discovered while working at a McDonald’s, which makes me love her even more.

Yasmeen was one of the biggest models of her era, appearing in major campaigns, in all the major runway shows, and in cheesecake venues such as Victoria’s Secret catalogues and Sports Illustrated.

Her one runway appearance that I will never forget was in a nude, bejeweled catsuit at a Jean Paul Gaultier show.  The outfit made an encore during Gaultier’s twenty-fifth anniversary retrospective, but it just wasn’t the same seeing it on another model.  If there was ever a perfect match between garment and model, that was it.  The image is etched upon my mind.  I tried to find a photo from the show, but I wasn’t able to find one.

Anyway, when I look at Yasmeen I see what’s wrong with modeling today.  There are only three models who I see regularly on the major runways that aren’t white: Chanel Iman, Hye Park and Du Juan.  Sure, there are plenty more that book major shows, but the industry is so dominated by white girls right now, that the other girls can seem like an afterthought.

The early 90s were much different.  Models of indeterminate ethnicity were in vogue, like Yasmeen.  It was fashionable to look like someone no one had seen before.  And these girls weren’t put into shows to fill a quota; they were there because they were great models with interesting faces that we weren’t accustomed to seeing every day.

I don’t know what’s happened to diversity in fashion.  I used to praise the business for being inclusive, but I can’t bring myself to do the same today.  It’s as if the whole industry has taken a giant step backwards.  I’d like to write a profile of Yasmeen Ghauri where I call her a “trailblazer” in modeling, but I really don’t know if she had to do much to rise to the top, other than being gorgeous.  Nevertheless, I wonder if someone who looked like her could be supermodel today.  I doubt it.