Glamour Magazine has brought a wee bit of trouble upon itself. ABC News has the details:
This month fashion magazine Glamour takes on “the secret things making you fat” and “perfect pants for every body” pretty run-of-the-mill stuff for the glossy monthly, but the magazine also finds itself embroiled in a nasty controversy about culture, beauty and race, touched off by, of all things, a discussion about hair.
In June, then-associate editor Ashley Baker spoke to a group of about 40 lawyers at the offices of Cleary Gottlieb in Manhattan. The idea was that Baker would offer the “dos and don’ts” of corporate fashion, so far so good. But, when Baker got to a slide showing a black woman sporting an Afro, it read “Just say no to the ‘fro.” Outrage ensued.
“African-American women who chose to wear their natural hair have been stigmatized over the years,” said Venus Opal Reese, assistant professor of Aesthetics and Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. And that’s why Baker’s statement touched a nerve.
In the firestorm that followed, Baker was forced to resign. Glamour’s web site sports a front-page response from editor Cindi Leive that reads, in part “Glamour did not, does not, and would never endorse the comments made; we are a magazine that believes in the beauty of all women.”
Media Blog’s fashion advice still stands, however: Just say null-it to the mullet.