FASHION FAIL: Elle Canada Tells Naomi To Step Aside, Too

by Justin Fenner | 2:11 pm, June 7th, 2011

Why do so many people want Naomi Campbell to get out of their way? Just a week after British chocolatier Cadbury got dragged through the muck for comparing the supermodel to its latest candy bar with an ad saying “Move over Naomi, there’s a new diva in town,” Canadian Elle saw fit to flaunt a new crop of top models with “Naomi … move over!”

While the Cadbury ad was just blatantly racist, this one is just disrespectful. The model who took the magazine’s July cover, 16-year-old Herieth Paul, is stunning and will probably have a good run as a model. But why does Campbell have to move over for an amateur who’s less than half her age? Is there so little room for diversity in the fashion industry that we can’t have more than a scant handful of black models on magazines covers and in advertising? Is Herieth the straw that broke the camel’s back?

No. She’s not. But that doesn’t make this cover any less insensitive or any less ill-timed. We know magazines write their cover lines months in advance, but we’d think by now most of them would be above firing warning shots at internationally renowned superstars to move issues.