Invisible Beauty
Walk the runway with Bethann Hardison, the trailblazing Black model-turned-agent who discovered such icons as Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, and Tyson Beckford, forever changing the industry. From the director of SIFF fashion favorites Dior and I and Halston.
Directors Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng scheduled to attend.
Bethann Hardison is fascinating, engaging, hilarious, and outspoken. Born in Brooklyn in 1942, the daughter of an Imam who mentored Malcolm X, she went from working as a saleswoman in the garment district to being one of the first Black models to walk the high fashion runways in the 1960s. Despite her own success, she wasn't blind to the racism in the industry, so she gathered some of her contemporaries and started her own agency to support African American models. That was one of many successes she had in the business. Unfortunately, the fashion industry kept sliding back into its systemic racism, like when the "Heroin Chic" craze replaced a diverse roster of models with skinny Eastern European girls. Once again, she had to risk her career by criticizing the fashion houses who hold the power of any future employment. Seeing how vocal and unfiltered she is in this documentary, it's no surprise that she would end up co-directing it. She teamed up with Frédéric Tcheng, who himself has an impressive filmography of fashion docs about Halston, Dior, and Diana Vreeland. Together, they capture an important voice not just in fashion but in the world.
- Director: Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng
- Country: USA
- Year: 2023
- Running Time: 115 min.
- Producer: Lisa Cortes
- Cinematographers: Frederic Tcheng
- Editors: Chris McNabb, Frederic Tcheng
- Music: Marc Anthony Thompson
- Filmography: Hardison: Debut Feature Film; Tcheng: Halston (2019), Dior and I (2014), Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011)
- Language: English
- International Sales: Cinetic Media