Sao Paulo (AFP)

Gloria Maria and Shirley dreamed since childhood to parade for great designers, but the catwalks have long seemed inaccessible to these young black women, in a Brazil undermined by racism.

Their dream came true in early November, however, during the last edition of Sao Paulo Fashion Week, the country's main fashion event.

An edition like no other: not only was it virtual, with online videos of the parades because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the new regulations also required that at least half of the models be black or indigenous.

An unprecedented change, thanks to the work of associations for racial equality, which allowed the two young women to find their place on the catwalks.

Previously, the claws often paraded just one or two black models amidst blue-eyed blondes like famous supermodel Gisele Bundchen, in a country where more than half of the population is black or mixed race.

The last country in America to abolish slavery, in 1888, Brazil saw the debate over structural racism rekindled with the death of 40-year-old black man Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas beaten to death Thursday night by security agents whites in a Carrefour supermarket in Porto Alegre.

The unbearable images of the assault circulated on social networks on Friday, the national holiday of the Black Consciousness.

- "A towel on the head" -

But for Shirley Pitta, structural racism is also manifested on a daily basis in the lack of representativeness of the black population in the media.

"It took a long time to find myself beautiful. On TV, I never saw people like me," says the 21-year-old Brazilian, who has already posed for famous magazines like Vogue, Elle or Marie Claire. .

Her modern-day Cinderella story finally caught media attention: Before being spotted in 2018, this young woman with short hair and high cheekbones was selling skewers with her mother near a zoo in Salvador de Bahia ( northeast), his hometown.

“We went there every day, even on Sunday, from morning to evening,” she says between two parades.

When she was little, Shirley was ashamed of her frizzy hair: "I wrapped a towel over my head to hide it".

"It's important that black children understand that it's okay not to have straight hair, our hair is beautiful," she insists.

- "Go forward" -

Even though people around her told her she could be a model, Gloria Maria Siqueira, 17, also from Bahia, was not overly confident in her future in fashion.

"I thought I would never make it. I didn't have confidence in myself, I didn't think I was beautiful enough," says the teenage girl with the afro cut, who now gives interviews at the headquarters of the international agency Ford in Sao Paulo.

“Now I know I can explore the world,” adds this young Brazilian who admired black top models like the American Naomi Campbell or the Australian-Sudanese Adut Akech from her childhood.

The youngest of seven siblings, she now dreams of posing for Peruvian Mario Testino, one of the world's most renowned fashion photographers.

“Often people feel inferior because they are different and try to look like traditional beauty canons. But they don't know that it is this difference that makes them unique,” ​​continues Gloria Maria.

Shirley, she doesn't intend to look back: "Now that we have entered (in the fashion world), now is not the time to think about the past, we want to move forward. ".

© 2020 AFP