Jourdan's Pushed Against Major Prejudice To Model

Modeling is one of the most notoriously tough industries to break into, and that's especially true for minority catwalk hopefuls. Instead of being discouraged by the challenge, though, the prejudice Jourdan Dunn has faced as a black model is what inspires her to keep pushing in the industry — not only for her, but for the young girls looking up to her, too. Talk about modeling for a cause.

In a new interview with The Times, Dunn revealed some of the hurdles she's faced as a black model, including makeup artists and hairstylists not being able to work with her skin tone backstage. "It's hard for black girls," she says. "A lot do give up, because if you don't have an agency who is going to push you, you are just there doing nothing and having to deal with all the rejection."

Unlike many before her, Dunn has stuck around, and the hard work's paid off — this year, Dunn became the first black model pictured alone on the cover of British Vogue since Naomi Campbell's 2002 cover. And she has no plans to stop her modeling world domination anytime soon.

"I feel like I owe it to other little black girls and other ethnic-looking girls to carry this on. You know what? It is hard but I had to get over it," she says.

More minority representation has been called for recently in the industry, and even though we're not even close to equality yet (in modeling and in general,) Dunn's making a major statement simply by killing it in everything she does. She cares about the message she's sending to the world and to the next potential Jourdan Dunn, who's out there right now, facing the same challenges the superstar did and trying to move past them. Hopefully, Dunn's stance is encouraging girls like that, because it's time to see more women of color in our advertisements and on our runways.