Fashion Neurosis with Bethann Hardison

28:59They didn't even know how to walk. And slowly, slowly, they begin to end the life of the runway model. So now what you see is that everybody does equal to the same. But back in the day, the market for designers in the garment industry were always serviced by model agencies that only worked with models who only serviced that industry. They weren't print girls. God, I never knew that. Nobody knew. That's incredible. Until Bethann told them. Yeah, Bethann. I swear, I promise you. I tell so many people, they go, wow, I never knew that. No, of course not. Because no one talks about it until someone takes you down memory lane, and I have to explain that.

29:42And Calvin kept me. I was the last runway model he kept. I was down to one outfit, but he held on to me. Because we had a lot of great moments of fittings, because I was very inspiring for him. Yeah. But in the end of the day, you know, we didn't have many black girls doing editorial. so you had when they found Iman yes and little by little a Naomi comes on the scene in in the 80s and she's one of those girls but we didn't have a lot of that but when we just panace came from from France and he started American Ale he just had a he had a real appreciation for blacks beauty brown girls so he started putting them in the magazine and putting me on the covers, and that challenged Condé Nast and Hearst.

30:32So they had Bazaar. We had, you know, Mademoiselle, which you don't have anymore, Glamour magazine, Vogue. And what wound up happening is that these girls all of a sudden started having, now those magazines wanted to have those black girls because they had to compete with this French magazine that came, and he was killing it. I mean, he had no problem putting black girls because there was nothing for them to lose. And it was brilliant. So then all of a sudden we have all these black girls working. Now all of a sudden we have, you know, Vogue taking, you know, girls on photo shoots. Before it was just studio shoots, black girls.

31:13They never went on a location. So it was really, really divided in who, what you did with which. It was like departments, like working, you know. You had black girls do catalog shoots maybe, but editorial? Oh, no, not a lot of that. So this is the change. And I started watching this. Now, of course, these girls don't know the history of Bethann and the girls that were runway models. This had never happened before to see this many girls starting to be, Beverly Peel, Tyra Banks. You know, these different girls now are working editorially in these top magazines. I decided I wanted to do something and I had this idea let's celebrate them I had my model agency already and I had it for you know now I thought it was 1984 so this is by this time it's 1986 enough time for girls to start to be groomed in that world and that editorial world I Iman had just finished she stopped modeling and she has started to be um started going towards acting.

32:20She was bummed out one time about losing a role. And I told, I got an idea for us. And she always liked the idea of mine. And she and I would do things together like parties and things. And I came up with this idea, let's celebrate the black girls and blah, blah, blah, blah. And the way I told the story and pitched it to her, she said, she always said yes, but she said, that's a great idea. And I just want to take her out of her doldrums at the moment. And she said, yes. And so we put it together. So we had all the girls who worked and I wanted them to understand what it was about. It was about, you know, just celebrating being that girl, but learning to work together and be models who could work together, be of the same color.

32:56And while we were having the terrible time of homelessness in New York City, if we could benefit homeless children, organizations that supported homeless children and their mothers and parents. And so I just did something to just bring attention to that. And that was great because that started in 1988, I think yeah yeah and it went on for a while and then it was good we you know I would do these parties and everybody in the world would come and of course they would because all these beautiful black girls are there and we would make people you know we sell like raffles and make friends and us and Keith Herring and all them give us products so we could rifle off it was just it was just an awareness make people learn how to give back and I was teaching everyone something that most people didn't do in our industry.

33:47They wouldn't even thought about other people. And the homelessness thing was something that really bothered me because I always thought I could be homeless one day. So I really, really, really thought that that was what was important at that time. We did it until 1993, 1994. I can't remember. 1992 maybe. But then by then, eventually, you know, the black models started disappearing because Eastern Europe had opened up and people started bringing them forth. So that's when it became something that I had to pay attention to, noticing that the black model had disappeared, started disappearing. She who had been so prominent amongst whites, then she started to disappear.

34:30And not only did she disappear, just good old American white girls started disappearing too. It's so bizarre that the idea that Eastern Europe opens up and there's this kind of coming together of things and immediately a whole whole sectors of people are just dropped out. And I suppose that's the downside of fashion. Everyone becoming obsessed with one thing. Yes. And that's the limitation. Yet the other things you're describing, which fashion is great at, is seeing something that we care about, homelessness or any person would care. And we're really good at coming up with the best idea and the most fun idea and the most dignified idea, weirdly, coming from fashion.

35:16But there is a lot of dignity. I think what happened, too, with that whole thing with East and Europe, it really was something that was so new. and as you say this is true everyone thinks they're individual and then you watch them all follow the yellow brick road when it comes down to designers the attraction of all these beautiful in the body alignment i even liked i mean me and steven burrows we love that narrow hip girl and a lot of american girls as well as black girls don't have that same hip alignment so it was really beautiful to see these girls and then you know the way they were used became an idea.

35:55And all of a sudden, you know, you don't notice the model. She's replaced even Linda Evangelista. You don't even see Linda Evangelista anymore because she was part of the supermodels and the glamorous girls. So now these girls just, you know, notice them. You don't remember them. They're just becoming hangers. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the interesting thing about it and then it starts to become a trend that it looks like it makes sense because yeah you don't have to have black girls you don't have to have brazilian girls you don't have to have white girls but you know that looks like they're milk fed these easy european girls are coming and they barely have eaten their generations of like you know eating very little and they've got the alignment that looks so good and they just don't you're not noticing their faces per se yeah it's like a statistic isn't it it's like oh this is our aesthetic now this is statistic it's mysterious how captivating it is when everyone chooses the same thing it just it's really weird that and but you have this incredible eye for a model and Susie Cave, who was also on Fashion Neurosis, talking about you talent spotting her and her walking up the steps of the Carnegie Hall, age 14, and you were putting up the sign for your agency and you said, hey, you know, and you noticed her.

37:29I just wondered if she remembered that so well and I wondered if you remembered that moment. You know, it's so funny. I was trying to remember this so much because she stayed with me in my head because of her name and her look. And I love the fact that I hear from so many, and I'm going to use this as part of my speech because I never write speeches down when I get awards, which makes me so neurotic right before I go up on the stage. But that's one thing I want to talk about is how much I get the memories of others writing to me, letting me know how I treated them and how important I was at their point in their life.

38:15And I think that comes down to this sense of compassion. And that's one thing I want to really speak about too, because I didn't go into the model industry business because I wanted to be a model agent. I hated the idea. I got talked into it. And then they found me the money. than these models were so willing to show me the love they had to do something that no model agency had ever done, which was basically to wait for the money because I didn't have enough money to have a model agency. And the money that I was given was to have for the basics. So this was like a great thing. And when you have people like Susie reminding you and others that you gave her great confidence at a point in her life, that was really important.

39:00And I hear this so often. And one person who, you know, because here I'm in London right now talking to you, one of the most important people in my life that gave me a great deal of confidence was Nick Kahneman. Wow. And he took a chance on me when I was starting the agency. I had eight girls and one boy. It was him. And he had three agencies that wanted him. And I had nothing. I'm sitting in this big open space that I had just found an office down in a place called Tribeca that nobody even heard of. And and for some reason. He chose me and I promise you, it did everything for me. So starting this agency for nine kids, mixed all of them, different backgrounds, blondes, you know, mixed kids.

39:53and having Nick say yes to me gave me the belief that I could do this. And they don't know if I'm going to make it or not, but they wanted me to do it so badly. Yeah, that's so wonderful. It was such a pleasure. And I came here on his birthday, which is always April 15th, and he was everything for me, and he was a great loss to all of us. And we're Buffalo people, you know? Yeah, he was an incredible model. I mean, that advert when he's in the laundry and he takes it. I mean, it's just worth going back and looking again and again. The wit and the sort of languidness. The Levi, it was the Levi, right?

40:37Levi's, yeah. It was so cool. It was just like you got to see somebody rather than something being promoted. It was so funny as well. It was advancing his thinking. Yeah. It was advancing his thinking. And I just want to go back to saying something about, you know, to not put too much weight on the designer, but I do in many ways, of how they allowed the change of the industry when it came down to who they put their clothes on. It came down to the change in the industry because we didn't have casting directors before. Casting directors and stylists didn't exist. So, you know, when I was a model, those things, of course, didn't exist.

41:21But the idea of it is that the game changed and then it changes for everyone. Yeah. And then you have to help bring them back, bring them back to what is real. Because I really do believe that the industry, even though it looked bad and it looked like it was racist, I didn't think that was their intent. And that's the only reason why I could approach them, saying and letting them know they had gone in a rabbit hole. Yeah. And now this is who you look like. This is what you are. whether it's your intention or not, you keep using consistently 35 models and not one is of color. And if it is, it's one season, one, one season, one, one season.

42:04Whether your intention or not, the result is racism. And that sort of got everyone's attention because between here, whether it be London, Paris, Milan, New York, not one designer thinks they're racist. Yeah, no one thinks they're racist. They never think they're racist because that's not their intent. They're creative people. And so when you say that to them and you show them, they responded right away. Yeah. You've talked about the importance of language in educating people about racism. The language of casting is pretty crude sometimes, like no blondes, no redheads, no freckles, but no ethnics, no blacks.

42:48That sounds like pure discrimination. How do you deal with that? How do you approach that? Well, you know, that's the thing that's interesting about that. When I would tell people who are not in the model industry or the fashion industry the blatant conversations, oh, they would say, oh, that's terrible. And I'd say, but you have to use words. I mean, if you're choosing a type of individual to represent whatever you're doing, your product or your brand or whatever you're representing, you have to describe to the other person what you want because this is a physical business. Many people say, oh, you can't say, they don't say, they don't want a black girl or they don't want to say.

43:30Well, in this particular case, a black girl wouldn't work. And in some cases, a black girl would work. When I was having my model agency, it was always so interesting to me because I'm so free-flowing. I had the good news about having a model agency that is predominantly white when you're a person of color gives you a lot of freedom because it was easy for me to see something and call it and I think because of who I am it worked in a way because of what way I would say it I had one beautiful white girl named Catherine Hammond who was a brunette who worked all the time commercially and she always did Brides Magazine.

44:16So I always had the relationship with Brides Magazine and I could talk to them. So it was very easy for me to one day say to the Brides editor, model editor, who books the talent for the magazine. You know, you do know that Blacks people do get married. Yeah. And the woman almost died. Oh, best man. Oh, yes, of course. I said, but you never have. I never see a black bride, an Asian bride, a Latin bride, ever. What do you think they do? They get married. Oh, and then they don't know what to say because it's not like they do it. It's like it just happens. Yeah. Yeah. Or when Calvin, they would call me and say, Beth Ann, I got a great job for you.

45:08Calvin wants to find, because by this time he's using print girls. And all the print girls, they're all white. Calvin wants to find a great black girl, and he wants you to find them. I said, how many black? Just one. I said, you see, now I'm happy to help you. But you see how racist that sounds? But then, we're not racist. I said, I didn't say you're racist. You hear how it sounds. How many girls are you going to have? And they would name it. It was very easy for me to do this maybe because I came on earth to do it. Yeah. Well, I suppose you have a way of showing people what they're missing, and that's the generosity that you have to show people that rather than criticizing them.

45:59Yes, that's the difference. Where people can't hear, and even though it's sort of shocking, You are very, very good at that, just drawing back the curtain so someone can bear to sort of acknowledge how blind they're being and what's available instead of continuing down this tiny, narrow path. And this is your gift, isn't it? Stephen Mycel used to say to me when he called me one day, He said, do you know you're the only one out of all the model agencies that has an Asian person? God, Stephen said that. I said, you're kidding me. But I didn't think it was like he wasn't wrong. I said, you're kidding.

46:45I thought somebody, because everybody copied me. If they saw that I was having a little run with something, then they'd get a black girl. Like I always wanted Lorraine Pascal. Oh, she was so wonderful. Oh, I wanted that girl so bad when she first came out. And I could have had her, almost had her. And just because someone had more dominant kind of model agency, then they would go after because they could see I started to make black girls work. My first bit of editorial was on Lorraine Pascal for the Face magazine. That was one of the black girls that I wanted so much coming out of this area. And it was just so many.

47:22I got a lot of good girls, you know, like from the Z model agency, You know, all the kooky white kids I like. I love a good-looking English boy, English boys in the house. I really do. And it was just always so good to have that kind of way of being. But it was, you're right. It was more not saying it, not badgering anyone, not making them feel bad. It was making him, like I always say, I'm here to help white people. I'm not here necessarily to help black people. It looks like it because I'm getting that result. but just to make them think. Yeah. Because I believe in them. You know, I believe in them.

48:00I know that they, you know, and I watch what happened when I sent the letters out. I watch how London reacted first. You know, the British Fashion Council, they were the first ones to respond to that letter. It would such, like, what can we do? So this was when you wrote the letters to all the councils of the major fashion capitals. That's right. calling them out for not using any models of color. Yeah. It was going well for a minute and then it would slip back a bit. You know, it's going well for a minute. But by that time I figured, you know, now you've got to do, you know, you put the last bullet in the gun.

48:41Now you've got no choice because you've done it all nice from 2007 to 2013. You know, it's been poco, poco, poco, poco, you know, little by little. and then they slide back a bit. So then you just saw what, you know, and then you had to just explain it out, go to the press with it, make it make sense to them and name names. Yeah. And that just changed the game, I promise you. And they all responded so well, so fast. So all those kind of things change through the industry little by little by little. You know, you just don't know what's going to happen, but so far so good. Can I ask you, if you fancy someone and you don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction to them?

49:31Yeah. I think if you're attracted to someone and they have no style, yeah, the attraction is leaner. That's a great description. Are there any specifics? Like Stefano Pilati said he couldn't bear those cut-down socks, those sports socks and skinny jeans. Well, when you saw. And Nessie was so frisky that he kind of got over it. Well, when you used to see some cute little, you know, some cute white boys and you saw in America and you saw them with Birkenstocks when Birkenstocks weren't cool. Yeah. That was like, oh, man, what you wearing? Yeah. Birkenstocks weren't cool at one point. No. And they would have little hairs on their toes.

50:22I'm sorry to get so descriptive. But that could make you go, okay, next. You have a particular kind of thing about Birkenstocks from my school when the teachers wore them and they were just so dowdy. Oh, yeah. And everything was so dowdy. But even though now they're kind of cool, I have kind of like a conflict whenever I see one. The person has to be so dazzling like some sort of weak god. Yeah, they can make it cool. Yeah, yeah. Some people can really make something that's corny cool because of the way they know how to throw a twist to it and do something to it. Yeah. And you were involved in the all-black issue of Italian Vogue.

51:10That was amazing. The only issue that's ever been reprinted at all, I think. Is that correct? Three times. Three times. And did that change attitudes in the industry? Oh, yes. For so many people, pride. Franco Sazani, God bless her. It was like I was having that press conference in 2007, in 2007 and the magazine came out in 2008. She asked me to, you know, participate in it, even though they did a whole piece on me in the back of it. And I had her son and I, her son did the pictures and she gave us 10 pages to find new young black girls to to add to it. Oh, wow. Just the idea that she believed so much that blacks would sell.

52:03That was her way of trying to make a point. Yeah. And she always would say it. She would say, they're not racist. They're not racist. And I said, and then even though I say this now too, I would say, well, come on, Franca, sometimes you've got to give it up. Some of them are a little. She said, no, Beth, Dad, no. And I went to work and, you know, afterwards I went to work with her for her, you know, Vogue.it. She was the first one to ever go on the internet. Really? As a magazine. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, she was the first one who did that. And she brought me on as an editor to do Vogue Black, it was called.

52:41And I did all the black side. And they had a white girl do all the fighting of models that were white and stuff. I did that part, yeah. And mine, of course, I made mine more special. Of course. Mine was so good. I did so much great for the industry because I'd find these young black kids coming up in the industry. and I'd interview them and I'd have real, real, you know, filmmakers, you know, shoot for me and we'd take them outside where the other girl, the white girl in Milan was just doing a, you know, portrait in their studio. But I was taking it and making it more film-like, you know. God, that's great.

53:16It was so good. Yeah. No, but it was really good what we had this opportunity at that time to have the Black issue come out because everyone loved it, you know. Yeah. It just surprised people because it was so well done. So beautiful. collaboration with Stephen Meisel and all the girls who were already successful on the covers and the other girls. And it was just beautiful what she did. I remember Vivian Westwood saying that bankers were responsible for climate change. And I remember thinking, oh God, that's ridiculous. And then she explained that it was because they reduced everything to a number.

53:49So it doesn't really mean anything. There's no emotional attachment and no inclination to feel accountable. And I wonder, do you think diversity has been co-opted in that way, racial diversity? In what way? Say it again. Well, that it's people take it and make it about numbers or a statistic, and then suddenly there's no reason to care about something. Yeah. I'm thinking right now, I have faith or having some belief that I think that the advertising industry and the designers and the brands are enjoying and sincerely booking the models that they see. because I think they can see when they put it on this, these silhouette, they put the clothes on certain body types.

54:50You know, West Africans, you know, can easily compete with the Eastern European, you know, when it comes down to body alignment. And I think when they put it on certain guys and certain, and everyone just doesn't see the color, but they see the art and the physique. And that's why I'm proud of people that I helped too, like a Iman Haman who came along or a Cindy Bruna who came along. And they have 10 years of still working as a model today. That's unusual for a girl of color. Yeah. I remember seeing Naomi in the street when she was 16. And I was walking down Carnaby Street and I bumped into the stylist Kathy Castorine and she was with this girl.

55:32And I said, who is that girl? Of course, I know. She was cute. Oh, my gosh. She was cute. The most enchanting. She really was cute. I just found something. I came to meet her and her mom when they were, when she was 14 or 15. Beth Bolt was the one who asked me, called me and said, I have this girl because she, you know, was discovered by Beth. And then she said, I have this girl I want you to see. I think you could take care of her better because she was young. And I was everybody who, anybody who was good people in the industry. well it was a lot of good people then but knew that I was like that kind of person and so I was really basically I went to meet her I flew over to London to meet her and her mom and her stepfather and she was I think she was 14 and a half going into 15 and then she came to America at 16 and that's we we continued to bond I didn't I didn't wind up representing her but she stayed in my she stayed in my life I stayed in her life so she looks at me like her her American mother her her mother sees it that way too.

56:37We stayed. But I looked at pictures the other day. There's a little roll on her. She was really cute. But I didn't think so much that she was then. I just thought she was the nicest looking girl. I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen in my life. And then she was successful. I mean, she just shot to the top. And that on top of it. She had something to give. She brought something. Yeah. And so you've co-directed a documentary. of Invisible Beauty about your story. And you emphasize that this is your story, not your life. And what's the difference? What do you mean by that? And I'm very happy you said that.

57:22There is a difference between my story and my life. I hear people saying, and this is the life of Beth Ann. Well, no, because it's not everything. You know, it's not the life. it's it's it's it's a common thread of a story that connects the beginning to the end and yet to get to know who this person is you show it's we show we show certain elements of the woman yeah it gives you a little bit more who she is as we tell the story but if I you know there's there are things that I've done in life that it's not in that it's not in the film that's pertinent Yeah. And it doesn't show, it's not like focus on the life.

58:02It's focused on a story. It's a storyline. And that's what's so wonderful about it. But you do get to know more about me. Yeah. And how I did what no one knew how I did it. Yeah. Yeah, that's how. That's great. So that's what makes it. And activism can be a lonely place. And I wondered what art do you turn to to rekindle the joy? because you have so much joyousness about you. Well, the good news about activism for me is that there's something right after called advocate. So for me, at some point, you have to really put your foot on the gas. That's activism. And then at some point, you have to know when you have to put your foot on the clutch and the gas.

58:47Then you start rolling back a little bit. Then you start putting your foot just on the clutch. Don't touch the gas. that's being an advocate so for me what i come to realize is that when people say well you're an activist i said well not now because that's a that's really activism has to remain active and that's a that's a quote of mine that i've said often that's an activist someone who's constantly doing it but when you stop from doing it and lean back oh yeah you know i like film I'm right. You know, I love going to the movies. I love, you know, watching television. I love seeing series. I love seeing what someone does, creates in that kind of motion picture way.

59:32I wish I read more. I stopped reading in the maybe early 90s. But in the end of the day, I think that I know that I'm always going to be, if I need to be an activist again, that's when you have to get involved again strongly. Yeah. Yeah. No, I really understand what you mean. The momentum changes and where to focus changes.

1:00:00Anyway, thank you so much, Bethann Hardison, for being on Fashion Neurosis. I learned a lot. I am so happy you had me lay down here. Thank you. Can I go to sleep now? You can stay forever. Thank you, Bella, for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Yeah.

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