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Barack and Michelle Obama with daughters Sasha and Malia, Inauguration 2009. Image from Getty.

As the MDC crew came back from watching the historic inauguration of Barack Obama, there was an undeniable feeling of happiness and dare I say it, “hope” in the air. What brought me back down to reality was reading Guy Trebay’s article in the NY Times about the lack of color on the men’s runways. You could count on one hand the amount of men of color that have been seen in Milan for the past 4 days. Paul Stiell, Philip Huang, Dominique Hollington, maybe 2 others at the most. Why is this still true? Fashion must reflect reality. In a world where we have a black American President and highly influential black entertainers obsessed with fashion (Kanye West and Andre Benjamin come to mind) the completely insular world of high fashion needs to be as inclusive as the millions of voters in America. Frida Giannini, the Gucci designer, in the Times article said after the show, “I think it would be great if there was an industry initiative on this issue, because I am always looking for black models, or even Chinese or whatever, for the shows.” As Style.com says, it’s time for the boys to catch up to the girls.