Meet the Modeling Agency That's Fighting Racial Discrimination in Mexico's Fashion Industry Mireya Gonzalez - BuzzFeed
go to original January 13, 2017

Nearly two thirds of Mexicans have dark skin, but brown and black models are still considered “exotic.” (Televisa/Grupo Expansión/Condé Nast/Notmusa/Media MKT)

A recent analysis by BuzzFeed Mexico found that the country’s most popular magazines are way whiter than the actual Mexican population. At least 80 percent of the people in the 15 publications we looked at have fair skin.

Which is why María Osado decided to do something. Osado is a 19-year-old architecture student who grew up reading fashion magazines full of tall, white, blond people.

María Osado sees Güerxs as promoting racial diversity and feminism, as well as representing young people (Instagram: @guerxs)

Instead of settling for magazines full of people who looked nothing like her, Osado founded Güerxs, a modeling agency that’s challenging the Mexican fashion industry to become more diverse.

She decided to enter the business and transform it from within after wondering why dark-skinned models are considered “exotic” in a country where 65 percent of the population is brown or black.

Osado chose the name Güerxs because she wanted an ambiguous, flexible word in Spanish that wasn’t related to the flawed fashion industry.

Osado says her agency gathers expressions of beauty — not necessarily physical — that aren’t seen in the major magazines and aren’t bounded by society’s definitions of what’s attractive.

Read the rest at BuzzFeed

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