Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms Flex and Firms.
Speaker 2: This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Speaker 3: How bad does the Australian fashion industry have to be
Speaker 3: for them to be an active boycott? You have to wonder,
Speaker 3: because we already know, and I'm sure people kind of
Speaker 3: know that modeling or fashion isn't really the best industry.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people talk about how it
Speaker 3: can feel and come across as quite exploitative or quite uninclusive,
Speaker 3: and so to hear that it's gotten worse, you have
Speaker 3: to think, like.
Speaker 1: How bad could it actually get?
Speaker 3: And I know that people kind of make the statement that, oh,
Speaker 3: people know what they're getting into when they go into
Speaker 3: certain types of careers. But I would argue that you
Speaker 3: don't really know something until you've done it, and you
Speaker 3: could really empathize or sympathize or even conceptualize what it
Speaker 3: could be like. But if you're actually in there actively
Speaker 3: benefiting and you stop your.
Speaker 1: Own bag, that's big. That's big anyway.
Speaker 3: So over the last couple of weeks, I've been seeing
Speaker 3: a lot of unnews articles pop up about black models
Speaker 3: in particular boycotting Melbourne Fashion Week and other things in
Speaker 3: the Australian fashion industry, and you might ask for what
Speaker 3: reason in particular, and why is it just a group
Speaker 3: of these thirteen black models. And so they've talked about
Speaker 3: how they've experienced blatant tokenism, lack of necessary inclusive practices,
Speaker 3: like having people that can actually do their hair and
Speaker 3: do their makeup receiving less pay than their non black colleagues.
Speaker 3: And the thing that gets to be really tricky is
Speaker 3: because a lot of these models have and do work internationally,
Speaker 3: so they're not comparing this to like, I've only worked
Speaker 3: here and this is really bad and I'm just complaining.
Speaker 3: It's more so I've worked everywhere else and this is
Speaker 3: not on There was a direct quote and I won't
Speaker 3: name the people who are quoting this because we should
Speaker 3: protect identities. This is a very tense and tenuous subject,
Speaker 3: but this one model said that in London, New York
Speaker 3: and Paris you could not get away with what the
Speaker 3: Australian fashion industry is doing here, like what and how
Speaker 3: it treats black models, but they don't seem to care
Speaker 3: or to want to change. Another person said, black models
Speaker 3: doing Australian Fans Week is a form of self destruction.
Speaker 1: Babes. These are quotes.
Speaker 3: These are not just like these are statements. Another person said,
Speaker 3: it's absolutely the most traumatizing, dehumanizing, underpaying, an overall mentally
Speaker 3: draining week, and I have no desire to continue to participate.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing about boycotts. You can approach them
Speaker 3: in a ton of different ways. You can actively stop
Speaker 3: participating making any money through it. You can boycott certain events.
Speaker 3: You can just make statement and encourage other people to
Speaker 3: do what they need to do. But in this instance,
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe what's caused this conversation to start
Speaker 3: is because for the last three years, as though, there's
Speaker 3: been this over emphasis on making sure that all kind
Speaker 3: of entertainment industries are more inclusive. And we talked about
Speaker 3: body inclusivity, disability inclusivity, gender inclusivity, sexuality inclusivity, all of
Speaker 3: these things. And so I think what people are getting
Speaker 3: frustrated with is that we're learning the rhetoric. We know
Speaker 3: what to say, we know how to make people think
Speaker 3: that things are going to get better. And when push
Speaker 3: comes to shove for thirteen people, thirteen models, to put
Speaker 3: their names and face to these statements, it's not looking good.
Speaker 3: It's not looking good. I really, really do employ you
Speaker 3: to go check out these articles for yourself. There's an
Speaker 3: expertsa currently in the City Morning Herald, and it is
Speaker 3: very lengthy and it's very deep and it's very detailed,
Speaker 3: and I'm not sure if you'd know what to do afterwards,
Speaker 3: because I sure didn't. I was like, Okay, damn, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to fashion.
Speaker 1: Think that's not the one.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm just one person, and I don't
Speaker 3: run the fashion industry, and I can opt in and
Speaker 3: opt out, and these are this is these people's vocation,
Speaker 3: it's their livelihood. Like, yes, I'm sure some of the
Speaker 3: skills are transferable, but at this point, choosing like morals
Speaker 3: of a livelihood babes. You gotta know it's looking bad.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've noticed, which is why this is
Speaker 2: surprising from like a consumer point of view that the
Speaker 2: fashion industry does have more diversity. But then sometimes I'm
Speaker 2: put in situations with like certain brands or certain events
Speaker 2: and stuff, and I'm like, oh, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: live in.
Speaker 1: Everyone's heard this all before.
Speaker 2: But like the little microcosm of like following like a
Speaker 2: very small percentage of people who would be affected by this, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like what we saw with like the voice Parliament. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like I'm assuming everyone's on the S train in the
Speaker 2: next minute. It's like totally not that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It always surprises me when I when I go to
Speaker 2: events or when I hear these kind of things and
Speaker 2: you hear these like you can actually see that of
Speaker 2: course this is still happening. When it's presented to you,
Speaker 2: it is hard to not feel hopeless. But then it
Speaker 2: also kind of is one of those things where they're
Speaker 2: I think there is actionable things that can happen to
Speaker 2: fix this that it actually is like relatively simple, which
Speaker 2: is just to continue to include more and more people,
Speaker 2: is it not?
Speaker 1: No, well, I mean it is simple. Number one.
Speaker 3: I think the boycott shouldn't be happening. Like the extent
Speaker 3: that somebody would have to literally limit their ability to
Speaker 3: live their life, to cut off their own supply to
Speaker 3: money that gives them safety, security, and shelter, to make
Speaker 3: a statement so low charge about what they're experiencing insane
Speaker 3: like insane. Could you imagine going to your retail job,
Speaker 3: going to your office job and being treated so badly,
Speaker 3: you and all your other employers of the same ethnicity
Speaker 3: being treated so poorly that you were like I would
Speaker 3: rather have no job and risk having no home, no
Speaker 3: way to feed myself, no way to live, than to
Speaker 3: be in this environment. Like you couldn't even fathom having
Speaker 3: to make that decision because it would just not be necessary,
Speaker 3: Like what could truly be happening to you? That this
Speaker 3: is necessary? That's the thing that gets me and I
Speaker 3: loved in the expos how they talked about how the tokenism,
Speaker 3: because I think that people can't fathom how tokenism isn't
Speaker 3: actually good in the sense that what ends up happening
Speaker 3: is that it's exactly what you said. It's like by
Speaker 3: looking at it, like isn't it fine? Like isn't it fine?
Speaker 3: It's like I can't tell you how many times I've
Speaker 3: been included in like a makeup campaign for a brand
Speaker 3: that doesn't have my shit aid who's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: we just want use it.
Speaker 1: You don't even need it.
Speaker 3: You don't even need foundation or conciller, Like it's just
Speaker 3: like beautiful skins, beautiful, you.
Speaker 1: Don't even need it.
Speaker 3: Or you know how many times I've gone to do
Speaker 3: a photo shoot and someone's like, we love her body
Speaker 3: positivity and then tries to put me a size twenty
Speaker 3: in size twelves and then.
Speaker 1: Says, oh, but this is really stretchy. Do you know?
Speaker 3: It's like people, it's it's definitely hard to conceptualize something
Speaker 3: that you don't experience.
Speaker 1: But I think that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Like the easy part is to claim, like to claim
Speaker 3: that you are aware, to claim that you are inclusive,
Speaker 3: to claim that you are not exclusive. The hard part
Speaker 3: is to actually be it, because suddenly you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's so much I hadn't considered. Like if you threw me,
Speaker 3: if you were getting your makeup done and the makeup
Speaker 3: artist pulled out all their stuff and did not have
Speaker 3: All they had was foundation that was sixteen shades too
Speaker 3: dark for you. All they had was concealer that was
Speaker 3: too dark for you. All they had was lipstick that
Speaker 3: was too dark for you. You'd be like, oh, that's
Speaker 3: like what is this?
Speaker 1: Who is this person? And like how are you qualified?
Speaker 3: And that's everything people always ask me. It's like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, Like why do you do your own hair
Speaker 3: and makeup and shoots? Why do you style yourself?
Speaker 1: Why would I do that?
Speaker 3: I see somebody recently wanted to do a feature on
Speaker 3: me in a magazine and they were like, oh, with
Speaker 3: all of our features, we include shoppable links. So like,
Speaker 3: you know, let's say you talk about a lip loss
Speaker 3: you like, or you talk about a book you wanted
Speaker 3: to read, We'll just like include links and then we get.
Speaker 1: A bit of a kickback, right.
Speaker 3: Part of the discussion was about like what you wear
Speaker 3: and how you dress, and like, oh, people really like
Speaker 3: your style. I want to be able to link clothing
Speaker 3: and things. And so they're like, but we can only
Speaker 3: link from a few of our selected partners, like people
Speaker 3: that we can get affiliate kickbacks from. So it's going
Speaker 3: to choose those people. I said, okay, cool, show me
Speaker 3: what that looks like. When you're done. Every single brand
Speaker 3: they chose to feature didn't go high than a size twelve.
Speaker 1: Oh, and they're like, do you mind.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, babe, Like, I definitely mind, because
Speaker 3: you're not going to use my likeness so you get
Speaker 3: a kickback to sell things to people. Given the impression
Speaker 3: that I'm co signing it, I don't get a kickback.
Speaker 1: They're like, no, yeah, totally, Like we get where you're
Speaker 1: coming from. We sh get realize it to be so hard.
Speaker 3: I'm like that's the point though, Yeah, And so like
Speaker 3: when we get back to this idea, like it's okay
Speaker 3: to not realize it's really difficult. But now that people
Speaker 3: are having to cut off access to like livelihoods, what
Speaker 3: is the solution? And unfortunately, I don't think the solution
Speaker 3: is going to happen because realistically, you take away these
Speaker 3: thirteen black models, there are thousand and forty five hundred
Speaker 3: million trillion other models or other ethnicities who would die
Speaker 3: to be in those spots, who are a different kind
Speaker 3: of inclusive who can they just like platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, that's why I say, you know, you guys are
Speaker 3: all anti girl Boss. What do you think that I
Speaker 3: have all these businesses, so I'm the one in charge
Speaker 3: of how I make money, so at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, I don't have to experience these things where
Speaker 3: like people are ostracizing me so much that I have
Speaker 3: to make these statements to cut off my back.
Speaker 2: What I find funny is I was like, from my
Speaker 2: time on the insidequote unquote on the.
Speaker 1: Inside the womb is like I can see in prison.
Speaker 2: I can see on a very like person to person level,
Speaker 2: the amount of hot potatoing that goes on in every
Speaker 2: single like workplace.
Speaker 1: It's not my problem, it's not my problem.
Speaker 3: Well I can't do This's like we just we just
Speaker 3: make the event, we just make the brand, or we
Speaker 3: just did the marketing. And it's true, like it's not
Speaker 3: everybody's thing to deal with, but if nobody is looking
Speaker 3: after it, then nothing changes.
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