You’re flipping through the latest Victoria’s Secret catalog or you’re watching a live feed of a fashion week runway. What do you see? Most likely tall, skinny women—most of them white.
We often focus a lot on how models set an unrealistic bar for how people “should” look; that the industry doesn’t feature enough realistic-looking women who represent body types of all kinds. But that’s not the only issue we need to be thinking about—what about diversity in race?
A look at last year’s fashion month shows that despite increased attention on diversity, there is still much progress to be made; across shows in New York, Paris, London and Milan, more than 80 percent of the models were Caucasian.
Yomi Abiola, a model and founder of Stand up for Fashion, sadly wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t a change in the diversity of woman in Fashion Week. Abiola is worried that no change could hurt who we see as models in the future.
“We can’t underestimate what happens when young people don’t see their image and likeness in the jobs that they want to do,” Abiola told Here & Now.
Nina Garcia, Marie Claire’s Creative Director and a judge on Project Runway, also acknowledges the problem—but she is hopeful for change.
Garcia told Huffington Post, “I think the industry’s already addressing those points of view. I think there’s not enough African-American girls on the runway—that is a huge problem. There’s not enough African-American girls on the covers. But that is changing, and really the change has started, so I feel very optimistic.”