When Miroslava Duma, the Russian founder of Buro 24/7, posted a handwritten note to her Instagram last week — including a very casually executed racial slur — from designer Ulyana Sergeenko, the fashion community understandably reacted with incredulous horror. Figures from Bryan Boy to Naomi Campbell responded with posts of their own condemning the designer’s words, as well as the subsequent apologies from the pair.
In the midst of this frenzy, an early 2012 video resurfaced, of Miroslava at a press conference demonstrating some outlandishly narrow-minded, homophobic and transphobic opinions. In the film, she confides to her audience that Buro 24/7 would “never publish” anyone like Andreja Pejic or Bryan Boy because they were “very concerned about the beauty and the purity” of what they publish and “respect our readers too much for that”.
After viewing the video for the first time, Andreja posted her own incredibly moving response to the content, optimistically pointing to an industry-wide improvement in diversity and tolerance in the years since.
Andreja wrote, “Today we are part of a movement of unique talent that is smashing the old categories that once stood and proudly displaying a spectrum of age/color/gender/class. @miraduma‘s hopes that “this trend fizzles out quickly” have not been realized. I am thankful I got to stick around!”
While Miroslava was once again quick to apologise , acknowledging that she now sees how “utterly offensive and hurtful my actions were back then”, Andreja also agreed that “people should be given the chance to grow, change and overcome their ignorance.”
She finished by adding, “To my little sisters, bros and non binary siblings who don’t have the resources to fight back, to change schools, pay for medical care or the support of thousands of followers and who experience cruelty directed at them only because they have the guts to follow their hearts and minds in the hope of an honest, happy life please remember, chin up ALWAYS! Evolution is no stranger to our cause and one day we’ll see revolution❤️ . We couldn’t agree more.