Fashion's Blind Spot: Why doesn't the industry recognize it has a race problem?

YankeeFan · Aug 8, 2013

The Times looks at the fashion industry's lack of racial diversity:

Five years ago, the fashion industry faced a reckoning over the startling lack of diversity among the models on major designer runways. Reacting to complaints that many shows and magazines included nothing but white models, Vogue, in its July 2008 issue, featured a substantial article that asked, in its headline, “Is Fashion Racist?”

This came shortly after Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue, published a provocative issue using only black models and feature subjects; Bethann Hardison, a former model and agent, initiated a series of panel discussions on the subject; and Diane von Furstenberg, the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, urged members to be more aware of diversity in casting.

And since then, almost nothing has changed.

The New York shows are as dominated by white models as they have been since the late 1990s, roughly at the end of the era of supermodels. Jezebel, a blog that has been tracking the appearance of minorities in fashion shows since the debate erupted, noted that the numbers are hardly encouraging. After a notable increase in 2009 that followed extensive news media coverage, the representation of black models has remained fairly steady until this year, when they accounted for only 6 percent of the looks shown at the last Fashion Week in February (down from 8.1 percent the previous season); 82.7 percent were worn by white models.

In Europe, where Phoebe Philo of Céline, Raf Simons of Dior and many others have presented entire collections using no black models at all, the opportunities have been even less favorable for minorities.

http://nyti.ms/14zhrgq
Click to expand...

This is a giant, multi-billion dollar indusrty, that appeals to urban elites, and it's racial inequality has continued, unchanged, for decades.

Dick Whitman · Aug 8, 2013

Does the white models percentage include Hispanics?

LongTimeListener · Aug 8, 2013

I bet there were women quoted in that story!

da man · Aug 8, 2013

They could be using all Martian models in the fashion industry and I would never, ever know.

heyabbott · Aug 8, 2013

are there more white models in Ebony, Jet and Essence than black models in Vogue, Harpers and Cosmo?[/#whitecornerbacksneedlovetoo]

Versatile · Aug 8, 2013

heyabbott said:

are there more white models in Ebony, Jet and Essence than black models in Vogue, Harpers and Cosmo?[/#whitecornerbacksneedlovetoo]
Click to expand...

Five of the six magazines you named are not fashion-focused.

DanOregon · Aug 8, 2013

The NYT must not have mirrors in their building.

Football_Bat · Aug 8, 2013

The ad slicks in my paper from places like Belk and Kohl's have diverse models. The NYC runway is a whole different stratosphere.

Lugnuts · Aug 8, 2013

As some of you know I've got a fashion line in the works. It'll start small... Women's ready-to-wear, accessible, mid-range price point... yaddity, yaddity...

Anyway, I have no money so I have to rely on friends and friends' daughters to model for me. I have two people in mind. One is Indian, the other is Latina. It's simply the look I want.....

I don't understand why anybody trying to sell clothes in this day and age would go the whitebread-only route.

Versatile · Aug 9, 2013

Lugnuts said:

As some of you know I've got a fashion line in the works. It'll start small... Women's ready-to-wear, accessible, mid-range price point... yaddity, yaddity...

Anyway, I have no money so I have to rely on friends and friends' daughters to model for me. I have two people in mind. One is Indian, the other is Latina. It's simply the look I want.....

I don't understand why anybody trying to sell clothes in this day and age would go the whitebread-only route.
Click to expand...

Is "selling clothes" even the goal of the high-end fashion industry, really?

Baron Scicluna · Aug 9, 2013

What about their discrimination against fat women?

hondo · Aug 9, 2013

YankeeFan said:

The Times looks at the fashion industry's lack of racial diversity:

Five years ago, the fashion industry faced a reckoning over the startling lack of diversity among the models on major designer runways. Reacting to complaints that many shows and magazines included nothing but white models, Vogue, in its July 2008 issue, featured a substantial article that asked, in its headline, Is Fashion Racist?

This came shortly after Franca Sozzani, the editor of Italian Vogue, published a provocative issue using only black models and feature subjects; Bethann Hardison, a former model and agent, initiated a series of panel discussions on the subject; and Diane von Furstenberg, the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, urged members to be more aware of diversity in casting.

And since then, almost nothing has changed.

The New York shows are as dominated by white models as they have been since the late 1990s, roughly at the end of the era of supermodels. Jezebel, a blog that has been tracking the appearance of minorities in fashion shows since the debate erupted, noted that the numbers are hardly encouraging. After a notable increase in 2009 that followed extensive news media coverage, the representation of black models has remained fairly steady until this year, when they accounted for only 6 percent of the looks shown at the last Fashion Week in February (down from 8.1 percent the previous season); 82.7 percent were worn by white models.

In Europe, where Phoebe Philo of Céline, Raf Simons of Dior and many others have presented entire collections using no black models at all, the opportunities have been even less favorable for minorities.

http://nyti.ms/14zhrgq
Click to expand...

This is a giant, multi-billion dollar indusrty, that appeals to urban elites, and it's racial inequality has continued, unchanged, for decades.
Click to expand...

Yes, it appeals to urban elites. Most of them profess to be liberal. But only conservatives discriminate. Didn't you know that? #doasIsaynotdoasIdo

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