Kaja Gerber Phenomenon: Is Fashion Industry Ready for Diversity?
ON THE PAST WEEK OF THE FASHION SINGLE-DETERMINED STAR BECAME young Kaya Gerber is the sixteen-year-old daughter of Cindy Crawford, who followed in the footsteps of her mother. A rare gloss editor did not consider it her professional duty to put a model's energetic gait video into the storis and be touched when she took part in the Versace show - the same one where her mom appeared in the finale on the catwalk in the company of her colleague from the 90s.
After the final gong, the sites rushed to summarize how many times in these four weeks Gerber entered the podium. It turned out twenty-one output at eighteen marks (no problems with mathematics: just she got two outfits at Versace, Moschino and Saint Laurent). Reference list: the girl opened the show Alexander Wang, Fendi, Moschino, Isabel Marant and Chanel, closed Marc Jacobs, noted on Calvin Klein, Prada, Off-White and Miu Miu; finally, literally one day visited London week - all for the sake of Burberry.
It is not surprising that fans are wondering what brand a new favorite for an advertising campaign is doing first: Fendi, Chanel or, after all, Miu Miu. Aside, most likely, not one will remain, if only because in the instagram of the new favorite of the fashion industry there are already more than two million subscribers. For comparison: the Australian Charlie Fraser, who took part in fifty shows and set the season record in this way, is less than sixteen thousand. With respect to followers and likes, Kaya is about one hundred forty times more valuable - and fashion houses are unlikely to want to ignore this most important fact for today.
The same Fraser with the model from a completely different plane is not just not a debutante, but also the heiress of the indigenous population of the native continent. Her success, albeit on the condition of a conventional appearance, is a small victory of that notorious variety that squeaks into the fashion industry. But if her participation can still be adjusted to the rhetoric of "diversity", then Gerber’s exit from her is as far as possible. Daughter Crawford - the embodiment of conventional beauty, she would easily have got into the modeling business and thirty years ago. An ardent adoration ascertains a simple fact: the industry is ready to change, but as soon as the opportunity arises to not do this - sighs with relief.
In the meantime, TheFashionSpot reports: the number of models of African, Asian and Latin American origin, plus plus-size models over fifty, transgender people and those who are not ready to determine gender in principle, has increased on the catwalks. Compared to last season, the difference is not that striking, but if you are guided, say, for the spring-summer 2015 season, the progress is impressive: in three years, the share of so-called non-white participants in fashion weeks increased from 17% to 30.2% of the total numbers And the number of plus-size models in two years has increased from 14 to 93, that is, almost seven times. True, these achievements remain practically behind the scenes, are discussed mainly by insiders and, less often than they should be, are covered on the front pages of online resources, not to mention the print. Is it a matter of Kaya: "A Street Style Star Is Born!" - said American Vogue and immediately thoughtfully offered his readers to dress like a model.
Of course, Kayi herself is not guilty of this, she just works with input data. If the Fraser already mentioned represents the indigenous people of Australia, then Gerber is a family of successful models. At the same time, Crawford helps her daughter not only as a mother, but also as a mentor, after all, thirty years of invaluable experience. She arrives prudently: despite the abundance of proposals, the supermodel did not allow Kaye to start before the age of sixteen (to the delight of the casting agents, the festive candles were blown out only a few days before the start of New York Fashion Week), and now she is accompanied by a minor daughter everywhere.
In a sense, Gerber’s special position helped her get around her colleagues long before the start of the race: traveling along the route, including four fashion capitals, and even with her parent is an unaffordable luxury for many beginner models. Like living in the GeorgeV hotel, at the exit from which the paparazzi regularly caught her, whose pictures were then scattered on fashionable sites. Her popularity in instagram is also of a completely different sort, and putting it in one row is, say, Gigi Hadid, and not Barbie Ferreira, who is also adored on social networks: the usual beautiful children of the rich and famous are riveted on a priori.
This kind of instagrammers destroyed the canons, according to which the model industry lived for years, if not decades. According to them, for beginners, there were two possible ways to "shoot." The first is to become illegible in a good way, and in my first season to start cooperating even with second-tier brands hoping to become familiar (Malaika Firth, for example, started with New York shows like Odilon, Porter Gray and Rachel Zoe, and only two years later there was a breakthrough ). The second is to get into an “exclusive,” say, to Prada or Alexander Wang. Then everything depended on the performance and luck. With a good deal through the season, another model finally took off the cream: set records for the number of shows, received treasured contracts, starred on the covers of the gloss, began to take not by quantity but by quality.
The first sign of change was Cara Delevingne - a girl from a family with good connections. The older sister, Poppy, was friends with Karl Lagerfeld - and he quickly took Cara under his wing, ensuring her professional takeoff. Careers Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner, launched simultaneously, took off at even higher speeds. For three years, girls have appeared in so many campaigns that they seem almost veterans of the industry. Gigi’s resume has the Big Four, the covers of the four main Vogues: American, British, French and Italian. Kendall cannot boast like this yet (Great Britain and Italy still have not fallen down), although she cannot complain about the lack of filming. In the fall fashion weeks, Gigi cost a dozen shows, and only three of them were not “opening”, “closing”, or in both positions at once. Kendall's positions were so strong that they were not shaken even by a scandal that flared up because of the Pepsi advertising campaign.
Brands use accounts that are known to be rich and famous as a way to promote: instamodels contracts (to which Kaya, of course, belongs), the number of pictures on social networks are spelled out exactly the same as the conditions for participation in the show or shooting. Their selfies against the backstage of an advertising campaign can sell collections better than the campaign itself. For the same reason, choosing between a non-standard model, which is hardly written about, and an instagram star, the brands stop at the second. Yes, plus-size-girls like Ashley Graham got the opportunity to appear on the covers of Vogue (which could not have been imagined ten years ago), but Kaiya Gerber’s wild popularity indicates that diversity is still a long way from winning.
Kaiya is unlikely to have this practice: the next sixteen will be Lily Grace, daughter of Kate Moss and publisher Jefferson Hack. She is already accompanying her mom to fashion shows, where she coexists with the newly made chief editor of British Vogue Edward Enninful, and it may well be that very soon we will get a new Kayu.
Photo:Marc Jacobs, Hudson Jeans, Miu Miu, Penshoppe
