Pioneering Model and Activist Bethann Hardison Looks at Fashion’s Past and Present

As a model, activist, agent, consultant, documentarian and unofficial historian, Bethann Hardison’s take on 50-plus years in fashion is layered to say the least. She sliced and diced much of her career in a lengthy Q&A with Fern Mallis Thursday night at 92Y. Speaking baldly, as she often does, Hardison not only entertained the crowd, but also gave them context about racial consciousness, political correctness and other debates the industry is facing. After being a pioneering model in New York, Hardison worked as a modeling agent for Click before starting her own agency Bethann Management in 1984. She started the Black Girls Coalition to celebrate black models in the late Eighties and led town hall-type discussions a decade later in response to the lack of diversity on American designers’ runways. More recently, Gucci recruited Hardison for her insights, after the luxury house was criticized for a balaclava sweater that some found racially offensive. Still at work on a documentary and a book, the New Yorker is now focused on helping established young designers develop their businesses. All in all, Hardison said her life has followed an organic path. “There is nothing that I have ever wanted to do. The only thing that I

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