This biopic traces Bethann Hardison’s fight to bring diversity and equity into the fashion industry through her modeling agency, mentorship, and activism. We break down INVISIBLE BEAUTY by Bethann Hardison & Frédéric Tcheng in this episode.
Sundance 2023 Section: Premieres
Distribution: Theatrical Release on September 13, 2023, Premium Video on Demand on October 31, 2023, and Streaming on Demand on Hulu on January 18, 2024.
From Sundance’s website: Fashion revolutionary and model turned agent and activist Bethann Hardison knew that Black is beautiful well before the fashion industry acknowledged the truth. From walking runway shows alongside Iman to discovering supermodels like Tyson Beckford and mentoring icons like Naomi Campbell, Hardison has been at the epicenter of major representational shifts in fashion. Catalyzing change requires continuous championing, and as the next generation takes the reins, Hardison reflects on her personal journey and the cost of being a pioneer.
In tandem with Frédéric Tcheng (Halston, Dior and I), Bethann Hardison is a force at the helm of her own story. Together, the co-directors trace Hardison’s impact on fashion from runway shows in New York and Paris in the ’70s to roundtables about lack of racial diversity in the early 2000s. Hardison’s audaciousness and candor are inspiring and inviting. Interviews with industry speak to the state of fashion, while friends and family attest to Hardison’s rebellious and ambitious spirit. The film is an absorbing record of Hardison’s accomplishments and a rare contemplation on the life of a radical thinker.
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.501] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. And I'm Wander Bright. And welcome to Story All the Way Down, where we're covering the Sundance documentaries from 2023. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about Invisible Beauty by Bethanne Hardison and Frederick Chang. So this was part of the documentary premieres at Sundance, and it is focusing on the life of Bethanne Hardison, who was a Black model. She owned her own modeling agency. She was a mentor to a number of models, and she was a leader of bringing about a lot more diversity and inclusion within the modeling industry. And so She's actually co-authoring this film with Frederick Chang. And so she's a co-director and throughout the course of the film, she's also writing her own memoir. And so she's figuring out the through line of how to tell her story. And she comes about this innovation to look at how she's in relationship to different people along the way. So she starts to, both Frederick and Bethann, start to lay out these different chapters of her life. going back into her childhood where her father was a mom advising different people like Malcolm X and just a real intellectual. But also during the time as she was growing up, she's being in schools that are being desegregated for the first time. And so she's able to really find her own identity by being integrated in a way that she just saw herself as a human while people were kind of still seeing her through a racial lens. So that's, I guess, a theme that continues through her life is to kind of break down these barriers around the fact that there weren't a lot of women of color that were models. And so she herself was a model, but she was also at some point decided to turn her focus of becoming an agent and a modeling agent to help to promote other people with a way that her models had a lot more diversity and personality. And she kind of like was bringing about these different changes by representing and featuring these models. She does her work for about a dozen years or so and eventually decides to take a break. She goes away and then finds out that everything goes back to normal with the Soviet bloc comes down and you have just this monolithic representation of just a lot of Eastern European white blonde women and maybe one or two women of color. So she comes back and starts to do some analysis and surveying of trying to get some actual statistics of what was happening in the industry and has this big press conference in 2007 to start to bring out more awareness of diversity within the modeling industry. So the film on the whole is tracing her professional life. It's also got an element of her son who ends up being an actor, but you know, she's got a lot of high standards and it's very critical. And so he's also trying to find his own voice in his own relationship with his mother in a way that she's going on off and doing a lot of these amazing things, but also the subtext to some of this is what happens to her relationship with her son and her own romantic relationships is kind of like a subtext to the through line of her professional career. So that was Invisible Beauty. A little bit of a recap and love to get some of your thoughts on the piece.
[00:03:15.081] Wonder Bright: That was an exhaustive retelling of the whole story. So Beth Ann Hardison is born in 1942 and she is one of the first Black models on the scene. That's actually a critical factor about what makes her so breathtakingly phenomenal. And like, we all should know who this person is because her activism, her whole life and the way that she's been able to operate as an insider in the beauty industry, a dreadlocked beauty insider who is promoting black models and models of color. Well, just a really diverse roster of models altogether, frankly, is just it's such a super cool history. And I had never heard of her before. I'm not like a real fashion industry follower. So her whole story is like completely new to me. And boy, howdy, was a fantastic introduction.
[00:04:18.110] Kent Bye: Yeah, you see that she's not only on the front lines of being a model, so she kind of learns the ins and outs, but she's able to then discover a lot of the talents that we have grown to love and recognize, whether it's Naomi Campbell or Tyson Beckford. And she's way more than just an agent, she's also a mentor to these people as well. And so she's helping to really craft how to navigate this world. And yeah, I think there's this broader reflection around what the beauty standards are, and she's really trying to propagate this idea that black is beautiful. So yeah, the synopsis says that she's doing this well before the fashion industry is kind of widely acknowledging this truth. So she's kind of at the frontiers of trying to bring about this change. And the thing that I found interesting was that she's doing this work and then she takes a pause and just how it was almost treated like a fashion trend that they had this diversity. And so, it ended up being that she was at the agency level, but there was this wider awareness that needed to happen across the other decision makers, the designers, And as we see later in the film, it gets down into who's actually producing and selling these works. And so, you get down into the business owners as well. So, I feel like she has been on the frontiers of trying to bring about a lot of these changes. And through her story and all this archival footage, we get a telling of what was happening at those moments and these turning points in the culture and how She's really using image to be at the frontier of like, if people see representation in the models and that diversity, then that's kind of like spreading out across the other aspects of the culture. That was kind of her philosophy and her theory of change was to do it through the lens of fashion in a way that I think is really quite fascinating.
[00:06:09.890] Wonder Bright: Yeah, she really had a clear and canny insight that what the eye beholds, it perpetuates. And she was really able to see beauty in herself and other black models and black people, obviously. and not just see it, but name it and bring it forward into white seeing, which I can't imagine that was an easy task. The name of the film is Invisible Beauty, which on the face of it is speaking about how black beauty is not recognized in the industry, you know, even still, and her tireless work behind the scenes to make that happen. And then, of course, that phrase behind the scenes is part of where the invisible beauty is also coming from, because she herself is invisible in the machinations of that whole process. The fact that I know who Andre Talley is and and who Anna Wintour is and like, you know, there's other like really notable fashion industry people that are kind of key names that we know. But Beth Ann Hardison absolutely ought to be up there. And yet one of the things that we learn in her film is her capacity to operate behind the scenes and to speak with individuals and bring their stories forward and bring their faces forward and not promote hers, but to really be in this state of listening and attentiveness, which, you know, has been a hallmark of some of our more favorite films in the series, the way that not just the filmmakers, but their subjects are paying attention. And in this film, what Beth Ann Hardison is really paying attention to is beauty. And when she finds it, she brings it forward.
[00:08:01.198] Kent Bye: So Beth Ann Hardison in this film actually mentions that she's been consulting with her astrologer and gives her a message. Do you remember what that was?
[00:08:08.984] Wonder Bright: Of course, I remember. Yeah, she's talking to the camera directly about some of the things that she's going through as she's trying to construct her memoir and also, obviously, the film itself, which is about her life. So it's another kind of memoir. She's doing both of them simultaneously. And she says to the camera or to Frederick Chang, her collaborator on the film project, that she was puzzling over how she was going to tell her story. And her astrologer tells her, well, Bethann, all you need to do is tell the stories of the people that you have been surrounded by. That is your story. And clearly you hear that listening and that attention that she's paying to the world around her and how she's able to reflect the beauty in the people that she sees around her very, very clearly in that. I was already looking at her chart by the time we learned that she's into astrology. So I immediately go to the chart, be like, why did her astrologer say that? And there's a number of answers that I have to that. But first of all, I have envy because her astrologer has her birth time, and we do not. However, even without her birth time, we can see that she's born on September 30th, 1942. So I'm looking at what I do have for her. So I'm really fascinated by what I discover because even with just that birth date, we have some really valuable information that gives us a certain kind of lens through which to look at her life. And I just want to give a brief disclaimer around what I'm about to say because I am not going to be commenting on her personal life. First of all, I don't know it aside from what's in the film. And secondly, it's just not for me to analyze that kind of stuff. What I want to look at is her chart in terms of like what it says to us about her activism and like what we can learn and be inspired from. in terms of what the astrology says about her chart and how to work with the energies that she's got on display. And the specific reason for that is being born September 30th makes her a Libra sun. So the sun traditionally is considered to be, quote, in its fall in Libra. So people who first get into traditional astrology might be a bit dismayed to learn that their sun is like maybe not operating at peak capacity. And the reason for that is that when the sun is in Libra, it is activated less by the desire to shine itself and more because it's ruled by Venus, by the desire to shine light on others. So right away, we hear the wisdom, whether this is the thing that her astrologer was looking at or not. But we hear the wisdom in her astrologers advice to her to actually shine the light on the people in her life, because that is going to be her story. And as we go through her story, following her on this journey, as documented by Frederick Chang with her collaboration, we begin to learn not just about Beth Ann Hardison, but about the way in which she perceives the world and the way in which she perceives the people who populate her world and the way in which She perceives beauty, which of course is Venus's reign. Venus is the ruler of labor, which is where her son is. But it's not just that, because her son is also about to conjoin the planet Mars, which of course is the planet that's in charge of war. Mars, Marshall. This is where we fight. And when Mars conjoins the sun, it happens because Mars is as far away from us on Earth as it can possibly get. It's on the other side of the sun. We can no longer see it because it is blotted out by the light of the sun. So Beth Ann Hardison was born on September 30th and Mars actually conjoined the sun less than a week later on October 5th. And it conjoined it in Libra. So again, Mars and Libra, just like the sun and Libra, is not considered to be an advantage in Libra because Mars and Libra is also ruled by Venus. Obviously, the god of war and the goddess of love seem to be essentially at odds. And yet here is Beth Ann Hardison, right? Like, how do we account for someone who has this Libra sun with this Mars and Libra And it's conjunct and it's approaching the actual conjunction. And what has she done with her life? But through diplomacy, through the arts, through the experience of beauty and the broadcasting of beauty, shining a light on beauty in all of its multiple diverse ways of appearing to us. But she is fighting for beauty to shine throughout the world in a way that is just truly remarkable and so dynamic and exciting. And the way that she goes about doing this and the fierceness with which she approaches her work and protects the people that she loves and shepherds them and guides them is just something to behold.
[00:13:15.120] Kent Bye: Yeah, and as somebody who has Mars and Libra, I can also attest to the detrimented nature of Mars and Libra. Austin Coppock is an astrologer who told me once that Mars is kind of like the god of war. And when Mars is in Libra, it's like having the god of war at a tea party. where Mars wants to be on the front lines using weapons and martial ways of fighting, but yet when you're in a tea party and have to use all these methods of language and diplomacy, then the expression of Mars can kind of feel restrained in a way that can be frustrating. I personally experienced it by almost like a suppression of anger or passive aggressiveness or kind of a cutting edge. And so I see that in Beth Ann Hardison and the way that she is really angry at some of these injustices, but yet she still is using that Lieberman mode of diplomacy to bring people together and have conversations. And she's very resistant to explicitly attack the industry, whether it's at the model level or the designers or anything else, but she wants to facilitate these interventions where she's bringing people together and to really inspire through that anger that is trying to fight for these injustices that are happening, trying to bring about more of equality and diversity within the broader industry. So you kind of see that through these different moments throughout the documentary, specifically the 2007 press conference where she had sent out a number of people around the world to these different fashion exhibitions and really did an accounting of how many models of color, the full number of models and sort of really have some empirical objective evidence to say, here's the state of the situation, and this is not acceptable and explicitly calling out people. And so there's kind of like a shaming that she's doing, but for this larger purpose to bring about broader change. And it's clear that from the way that the story is told in the film, that that was actually a big turning point in terms of trying to bring about these larger shifts. And then also with the murder of George Floyd, it was also another reckoning of racism within the fashion industry and the next level of that discussion. But as bad as it still was, even with the last years, certainly without the presence of someone like Beth Ann Huderson, who was on the cutting edge doing this stuff, I think Whoopi Goldberg is saying that without Beth Ann Hardison, it would be taking another 20 to 25 years to get to the point where we're at. So she's been doing a lot of this foundational work. So yeah, just kind of honor the ways that she's using that mode of diplomacy to bring about change within the fashion industry and to fight for this vision of equity and justice through the image and through these depictions of beauty.
[00:16:05.273] Wonder Bright: Yeah, well, and also her rigor and discrimination analysis. Her Venus is actually in Virgo, which again, Venus is quote in its fall in Virgo. So it's not supposed to be so happy in Virgo because Venus's whole desire is to reconcile and unify and to bring things together. and to make them beautiful. And Mercury's whole job, Virgo's whole job is to discriminate and analyze and honestly to criticize a bit. So when Venus is in Virgo, it becomes hyper analytic and critical. And yet, obviously, this is exactly what allows her to detail in a bulletin point way, this is what happened. And she's not like saying, and therefore you're all a-holes and like get your crap together. She's just naming it. She's just detailing the injustices in a way that makes it something that people can't ignore because it's Beth Ann Hardison. And she has done the job of surrounding herself with a number of luminaries whose names carry weight partly because of the work that Beth Ann Hardison has been doing all along the way. So she's able to bring that critical analysis in a way that facilitates that diplomacy and strength. I mean, her chart is just a fantastic one for anyone who has planets in detriment or in fall who is concerned about traditional ways of detailing planets and fall or in detriment. to understand how those things can actually be strengths. Her chart is a great example of that. You know, we have to remember that traditional astrology describes things as detriment or fall. And while on the surface of it, it's true that it might describe experiences that are difficult. There are people who are able to use those signatures in ways where they are just not operating the way that they're expected to. And they really operate out of the box. And Beth Ann Hardison is such a hearty example of someone who's able to do that. She's able to take situations and see them from a completely different viewpoint than the way that the rest of the culture is seeing them. And her genius lies in her ability to make us see it the way she sees it, too. And obviously, as a human being, she's a great example of how to take circumstances that might not be the circumstances that you desire and somehow transform them. I really love what you're saying also about how she's provided a foundation for younger generations to come forward. She is, of course, born in 1942. So her styles of diplomacy are not necessarily the styles of today. It's not necessarily the fight that we have today. And yet, because of the way that she interacts with the world around her, she's inseparable from the world around her. And she is so invested in creating the world for future generations to benefit from that she is able, seemingly, to make that space available for others to create the beauty that they see in the world.
[00:19:16.768] Kent Bye: Yeah. And, uh, I guess as we start to wrap up the things that I want to bear witness to are all the ways that she's able to build the connections and trust within this industry and really use her sense of justice to try to fight for change and to have these different interventions with this press conference. You know, there was a really interesting mix of people from across the industry And, you know, there's a lot of stakeholders and decision makers and to try to understand that what's the limits of what agencies can do, what's the limits of what the designers. And so it was a moment that was really trying to reflect holistically these dynamics that the end result was not acceptable and what needs to shift across the industry to get things into be having more diversity and inclusion. And I think as time has gone on, certainly within the tech industry, she was on the bleeding edge of trying to do that in the fashion world. But it took a while for different companies to start to implement those same types of modes of unconscious bias and how that may be determining their hiring decisions. And so It's a conversation of diversity, equity and inclusion that there's people that are now assigned to that in terms of companies that are trying to fight against these different aspects of unconscious bias. And so she's really laying down this groundwork for trying to promote this as an idea and as the thing that's actually going to make that diverse ecosystem of fashion or everything else of the domains of human experience, just so much more rich by having those different perspectives and to have a different take of having personality and exuberance and ways that people express themselves with how they move. Yeah, there was a moment in this film where the fashion designer going into a competition and they out of nowhere were able to come away with the first prize because just the way that they were embodying themselves and the way they moved around and having a full cast of models of color that were able to do something that was completely different than what people had had access to because of some of these decisions before. So, Yeah, so I guess just the way that she's been able to bring about change in her life and this film, that's really a testament to telling her story and the impact that it's had on the industry over time. And yeah, I think just reflecting on and honoring the ways that she's really pushed forward this conversation and that we would be even further behind without the work that she's done.
[00:21:48.616] Wonder Bright: Yeah, and I want to just bear witness to her fierce joy and celebration of herself and her culture and her industry and her joy in bringing people together and shining light on the things that she values. I came away wanting to know more about her, like really curious to like follow her from here on out. I'm excited to get her memoir. And, you know, Bethann, if you ever hear this, please include your birth data. We love you.
[00:22:22.010] Kent Bye: All right. So that was Invisible Beauty by Bethann Hutterson and Frederick Chang. It was a part of the documentary premieres at Sundance 2023. And at this point, it doesn't look like it's been announced that it has a distributor yet, but you can check our website at storyallthewaydown.com in the show notes. We'll keep it updated. And yeah, thanks for joining us. And if you'd like more information, you can go to our website and find ways that you can support the podcast. So thanks for joining us.
