Diversity on the runway is a topic that has been discussed far too many times for there to be so little progress in the area. This issue is represented in fashion weeks all over the world from Paris, New York, London, to Milan. Not only are colored models underrepresented in these shows, plus-sized women, aged models and transgender models are as well. No matter the potential, experience, and talent, non-white models still seem to be under-represented on the Fashion Week runway shows.
Image courtesy of: Odyssey Online, Diversity: Fashion Week’s Biggest Trend
For every designer who takes a stand and diversifies their model lineup, there is still somehow a large number of other designers who have an upsetting number of non-white models presented in their runway shows. Although in recent years, designers have improved on having various races represented in their collections, for the fall 2016 runway collections, non-white models made up less than 25% of all models casted. This means that the other 75% of models were white. Although this is an improvement from Fall 2015 where 80% of the models were white, the fashion industry still has a long way to go.
Courtesy of Vogue Magazine coverage of Brandon Maxwell.
If a designer is one receiving a lot of publicity for innovative designs, what better time to include the message of inclusion and diversity. To be unrepresented in a designer’s vision creates a disconnect to those people of color who already love the clothes. I must commend runway shows that led the way in terms of inclusion including Yeezy Season 3, Zac Posen, Christian Soriano as well as Brandon Maxwell. These designers had at least 40% colored models in their runway shows and more (Yeezy Season 3 had 100% colored models).
Image courtesy of: Yeezy Season 4 Runway Show
I’m sure some designers cast one or two black models with hopes of being eliminated them from the negative commentary about lack of diversity. When will the day come that designers hire black models because they want to, not because they feel obligated to? I’ll wait. We can’t applaud designers for having one black or non-white model on their shows, it’s certainly not diverse enough. And we also can’t expect black models to rejoice when they are the only non-white models casted for a runway show. A black models’ competition is every other model on the runway, not just the other non-white models.
Image courtesy of: International Business Times (London Fashion Week Day 1)
The fact is fashion is for everyone, yet there is still so much to say about the lack of diversity displayed on so many runways. It speaks volumes about designers and who they want to represent in the world. I’ve paid close attention to this issue, and while the numbers have improved, they are not ideal. I’m not sure why this is even an issue for the fashion industry, since there’s enough talented women of color looking to be the next Naomi, Tyra, or Cindy.
Stats from: thehotspot.com – Runway Diversity Report