An esteemed photographer who officially snapped Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018 has criticised unnamed figures in the fashion industry for having limited diversity standards. Alexi Lubomirski claims that one senior magazine editor told him, “Black girls don’t carry high fashion” when questioning why he wasn’t shooting different types of beauty for the outlet.
Mr Lubomirski, who also photographed Prince Harry and Meghan’s official engagement photo, says the Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o first alerted him to the issue of racism in show business when he photographed her. She said to him, “I really love these pictures. Can you make sure, when they’re retouching the photos, they don’t lighten my skin?”
The photographer said that when he began to look at past shoots with darker-skinned models, he noticed that there was a definite difference between the images he had submitted to magazines compared to the images that came out.
Mr Lubomirski, 50, who is descended from Polish aristocracy, also revealed his insight: “When I looked through my archives, I also noticed how rarely I’d been allowed to shoot different types of beauty, rather than just Caucasian girls.”
He explains he would ask editors-in-chief of magazines why more dark-skinned girls were not photographed on magazine covers. It is reported they said: “It comes down to economics, Alexi. We know that if we put a dark-skinned girl on the cover, we’re going to sell 40 per cent less copies… Listen, Alexi, the fact is, dark-skinned girls and other ethnicities can’t carry high fashion.”
Alexi, who lives in New York with his wife and two sons, was recounting the story behind his decision to create his 2016 photobook, Diversity, featuring photos of mixed ethnicities.
The description of the book reads: “…Lubomirski conceived Diverse Beauty, which celebrates many different types of female beauty through sophisticated and lively fashion photographs. Diverse Beauty embraces all beauty and aims to put every type of beauty on a pedestal, so that everyone who looks at it, no matter her race, size, colour, or sexual orientation, can identify and see herself as beautiful.”
The photographer candidly admitted: “I did end up losing a bunch of magazine jobs, because nobody wanted to have that conversation. They didn’t want to be made to feel guilty about the fact that they were just putting Caucasian girls on the cover.”
Responding to Alexi’s video on social media, on the topic, many people have come forward to express their gratitude towards Alexi’s outlook.
One social media user commented: “Bravo for doing this project! Your work is always phenomenal! You are a true champ & a treasure!” Another said: “Real beauty is not seen with the eyes, but with the soul of the one who knows how to look.”
One added: “Thank you for talking about and share your view on this issue in the Fashion world, sadly is the reality for many of us dark skin, not dark enough… too dark. It’s so hard and painful sometimes….So brave of you to talk about it.”