Against the backdrop of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, and amid a flurry of racist incidents in the fashion industry, the fashion world vowed it would change.
Has it? And how would anyone know?
In an effort to find out, we looked for concrete numbers about who gets to make fashion, sell fashion and represent fashion.
We asked a set of companies identical questions about the percentage of Black people on their executive team, on their boards and among overall employees — as well as in their ad campaigns and on their runways, shelves and magazine covers. We also asked about their measurable targets for change.
We chose those companies by starting with the fashion show schedule in New York, London, Milan and Paris, the most watched collections of the year. We looked at brands that are part of that runway system and that have more than $50 million in annual revenue, or have Instagram followings of more than one million.
We focused on 64 brands best known for their women’s wear whose products set trends, whose designers have become celebrities and whose imagery sometimes depends heavily on Black culture.
To that we added 15 major department stores and online sellers in those same cities; the ones that act as fashion destinations and serve as conduits between brands and consumers, and whose stamps of approval can change a business.
And we picked the glossy women’s magazines that often serve as the avatars of that system: Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and InStyle.
Here’s what came next.
There Was No Consistent Response
When we first contacted the companies, most wanted to have preliminary conversations — without being quoted — to explain the complicated nature of their individual situations before providing (or not providing) answers.
The hurdles they mentioned included the financial repercussions of the pandemic and the lack of diversity in their geographic regions. They brought up their success in gender representation. They suggested that we should be looking at diversity overall, not just Black representation. They asked about The Times’s own diversity numbers. They said European anti-discrimination laws meant they did not have the relevant information.
When the responses finally came, many questions were left unanswered, and the range of transparency was striking:
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Four of the 64 fashion brands — Tory Burch, Coach, Kate Spade and Christian Siriano — tried to fully answer each question.
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Several more (16 companies) answered at least half of our questions, including Thom Browne, Oscar de la Renta, Burberry, Brunello Cucinelli, Proenza Schouler, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
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Nine European companies provided no answers, saying that they were legally unable to participate. In France, a controversial 1978 law regarding “data files, processing and individual liberties” prohibits the collection and processing of personal data that reveals, directly or indirectly, the racial and ethnic origins, or religion, of any persons. In Italy, brands cited EU Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR), under which employers can gather and analyze some information about employees for equality monitoring purposes, but prohibits companies from processing data on race, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership or sexual orientation without explicit consent. Despite these laws, other companies based in the same countries partly answered the questions.
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Eight companies declined to participate at all. One never replied. Ten brands declined to answer questions but sent statements declaring their commitment to equity, such as “diversity is an asset to be nurtured; inclusiveness is a moral and professional duty” (Armani) and “ending racism has been at the heart of our brand communication since its inception” (Moschino). The rest responded with partial information, usually with information that was already publicly available, like designer ethnicity. Several offered information on their general diversity initiatives and human resources programs instead.
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Of the 15 retailers, nine declined entirely, two never responded, and four offered a partial response.
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As for media, InStyle answered our questions, but other magazines said either that they couldn’t release employee information or responded with links to their public diversity, equity and inclusion reports.
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In discussing their efforts to address the question of representation and inclusion, companies often used similar words, phrases and general sentiments, even if their headquarters are in different countries and are of different size — such as “more work to do” (LVMH and Chanel) or “more that needs to be done” (Tom Ford) or referring to diversity and inclusion as “embedded” in their “culture” (PVH) or “DNA” (Capri).
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So Why Focus on Numbers?
Numbers may tell only part of the story — the other part is human experiences — but it is a crucial part when it comes to measuring change. Racial progress requires vulnerability and real transparency, and choosing accuracy over opaqueness is a key part of creating trust.
Last year, groups formed to drive change in the industry. That includes Aurora James with the 15 Percent Pledge, a drive to get retailers to pledge that 15 percent of their stock comes from Black-owned brands, as well as the Black in Fashion Council and the Kelly Initiative, both focused on third-party audits to ensure accountability. Though they are all in the United States, they work with companies that have a global footprint.
They did not necessarily agree on how change should happen, but they all agreed on one thing: Data matters.
“One of the key elements of change making, especially in regard to diversity and inclusion, is metrics,” as Kibwe Chase-Marshall, a writer and a founder of the Kelly Initiative, told The New York Times.
But here’s part of the problem: Some brands share numbers and some won’t. Others don’t collect numbers in the first place. Still others say it’s out of their control.
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“From 2016, social media started shifting the industry hierarchy. Young people of color started seeing other people of color with their vernacular and body language, building audiences or moving into subculture fashion publications. There’s lots of lip service but not that much clear information about what it takes to be successful in a racially biased industry. There’s so much still being said in the voice of a Black monolith and not about the individual experiences and tribulations one can face. So I’ll keep talking.”Samuel Ross is a British men’s wear designer, LVMH Prize finalist and the founder of the label A-COLD-WALL. A Virgil Abloh protégé, he started awarding grants of 25,000 pounds (about $33,390) last summer to Black-owned businesses across a diverse field, including technology and industrial design.
“Before, when we had market appointments, it was just myself and my assistant meeting with the designer or the vendors. I never knew the other buyers or fashion directors. Now that we have Zoom, I noticed during one of my group presentations that I was the only Black person on that Zoom call. This is a Zoom call with buyers, fashion directors and people making decisions about what’s going into the stores. It was a very large group of people, and I didn’t see any other person that looked like me.I do think the CFDA has really stepped up in terms of partnerships. They really want to understand what’s missing and how they can reach more talent. One of the things that I shared with them is to look outside of New York. Look outside of your network of people. I shared with them places I look for talent: at our art schools here in Oakland or the design schools in San Francisco. Historically Black colleges are another place to find really strong talent, even on the business side.”Ever since Sherri McMullen opened her namesake boutique in Oakland, Calif., in 2007, she has acted as patron and mentor for young Black designers. For this spring season, she estimated that 25 to 30 percent of her luxury women’s wear designers are Black.
“Edward Enninful provided me with a life-changing opportunity when he picked me to shoot the September issue of British Vogue. Many doors open to me now that were never opened to me previously. So many people who look like me never thought they could be part of the industry. Those dreams got folded in a box and stored away.”In September 2020, Misan Harriman became the first Black man to shoot a British Vogue cover, months after winning acclaim for his photo reportage of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I would love to see more white people who are leaders in fashion, or have these amazing platforms, asked about diversity, too. I feel like they are just as responsible as I am for spreading awareness to their white friends and families and counterparts on the injustices that we’re witnessing.”The 23-year-old Alton Mason made history in late 2018 when he became the first Black male model to walk in a Chanel show, 108 years after the house was founded. In 2020, he was named model of the year by Models.com. He will make his acting debut as Little Richard in the Baz Luhrmann biopic “Elvis.”
“I get asked on a regular basis for my clients, because a lot of them are Black-owned businesses, to do Black stories, to do these stories about being Black in the industry. I get asked to do stories about being Black in the industry. The obvious reason is I’m still one of the few Black publicists in the fashion industry. But also because it’s evidently still an issue, this lack of representation.My recommendation, and I say this to every journalist that asks me those questions, is go ask my white counterparts what they think about diversity and what they think needs to be done. Because asking the people who are being most affected by what needs to be done, when we’ve been telling you what you can do, is counterproductive in my eyes.It’s also not helpful to segregate the Black people on retail sites and group them all together because they’re all different. It would be helpful if you regularly included them, regularly spotlighted them alongside your designers of other races, colors, backgrounds and ethnicities — and not just when it’s convenient for Black History Month. So while I do see people making an effort in certain instances, I think systemically there’s a long way to go.”Nate Hinton is the founder of the Hinton Group, a fashion P.R. firm. It is known for clients with strong messaging, like the Black-owned brand Pyer Moss.
More Sticking Points
Many of the Black-owned brands that have been most in the fashion spotlight over the last six months, like Christopher John Rogers, were not surveyed because of their size. That these businesses were still relatively small was revealing, reflecting the historic lack of support from backers and retailers.
It reflects as well the reality that, as a result, some Black-owned and run brands like Telfar and Pyer Moss have simply opted out of the system, choosing to work direct-to-consumer as both an intervention into and rejection of the bias endemic to the industry.
Some companies said they are working on gathering and analyzing employee demographic information and forming action plans — as many businesses are. But the hurdles go beyond legal issues. .
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Representation and diversity are also … well, diverse, encompassing gender, sexuality, religion, physical ability. Many brands can fairly claim to be genuinely diverse in one of these areas, though not all.
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The industry is in the middle of rapid, chaotic changes, brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The easiest way to make a company more diverse is to hire a wider spectrum of people. But in the last year, many brands had shrunk their employee base. So, instead of growing their employee base, they were contracting.
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Racism takes different forms in different countries and is rooted in different histories of slavery, colonization and migration. Representation also varies according to demographics. In Italy, for example, less than 1 percent of the population is Black. Despite these distinctions, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement throughout the United States and Europe indicates how pervasive the issue is across borders and cultures.
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And fashion is an industry built on mystery, uncomfortable with transparency, which intrinsically dislikes being forced into any sort of cookie-cutter structure or signing up to a group set of parameters; the concept itself runs counter to its principles of creative independence.
Some Glimmers of Change
Today it’s easier to see a shift in representation in magazine covers, ad campaigns and runway shows than in C-suites and boards. That’s because such platforms rely on freelancers and contractors, people who can be hired quickly and employed temporarily — and thus changed to reflect changing mores. These workers include models, stylists, photographers, and hair and makeup artists.
Five out of nine American Vogue covers since September have featured Black models, three of them shot by Black photographers (another featured an illustration of a Black designer), as have four out of six Elle UK covers and three out of six Vogue UK. InStyle used Black models and Black photographers for four out of six issues.
Two of five American Harper’s Bazaar covers have featured Black models; neither were shot by Black photographers. French Vogue has had a Black model on one of its five covers.
These images matter because they’re the ones that go around the world, and the world they depict — long dominated by a small handful of familiar Black names and held up as an example of token representation as a result — seems finally to be embracing a spectrum of new faces.
In addition, many brands and retailers have increased their financial commitment to historically Black colleges and universities, and to mentorship programs. That’s important because in order to change the work force, you have to help create a work force.
via Condé Nast and Hearst
All of the magazines we looked at had Black cover models for their September 2020 issues.
For their October 2020 issues, two had Black cover models.
Twenty-five fashion brands answered our questions about model diversity and had a spring/summer 2021 lookbook or ready-to-wear show. All of them featured Black models.
Thom Browne told us that 12 out of 25 models in their spring/summer 2021 show were Black.
LVMH, Celine’s parent company, told us that the brand featured five Black models out of 29 in their women’s spring/summer 2021 show.
Many brands showed Black models in their ad campaigns and shows this season. But behind the scenes, there is little Black representation among the executives and designers leading these brands.
Want to hear more on this topic?
On March 11, join Vanessa Friedman, New York Times fashion director, and industry leaders like Olivier Rousteing and Pierpaolo Piccioli, as they debate how the industry can make real change.
R.S.V.P. here.
But There Is Still a Very Long Way to Go
When it comes to the power structure of established brands, and the designers who represent them, Black representation is incredibly small.
Of the 64 brands we contacted, only Off-White has a Black chief executive — and that man, Virgil Abloh, is also the founder.
Of the 69 designers or creative directors at those companies, only four are Black. (One of them, Mr. Abloh, runs two brands: Off-White and Louis Vuitton men’s wear; the others are Olivier Rousteing of Balmain; Rushemy Botter, a co-designer of Nina Ricci; and Kanye West.) This number just shrank by one when LVMH and Rihanna hit pause on her Fenty fashion house. There had been one Black woman at the head of a major Parisian luxury brand. Now there are none.
Five top designer jobs have come up since the summer. Four went to white men and one to Gabriela Hearst, a Latina woman from Uruguay.
And of the brands we examined, only six of them, and three of their parent companies, work with the Black in Fashion Council. Those companies are all American, despite the fact the council works with other international organizations.
Of the 15 public companies in this group, seven have boards with at least one Black director. Of those, two (Capri and Ralph Lauren) have more than one.
Retail establishments and magazines are likewise lacking in Black representation in leadership.
Two of the seven retailers that responded, or whose C-suite information was publicly available, have a single Black member of the executive team. The rest have none.
Two of nine magazines we examined, which included international editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, are led by Black editors in chief.
Of the retailers we surveyed, two had joined the 15 Percent Pledge: Bloomingdale’s and, this month, Moda Operandi. One company, MatchesFashion, published its own breakdown of how designers self-reported their ethnicities — but out of 715 designers, 223 had not responded.
Of the magazines, Vogue and InStyle have signed the pledge, committing to commission at least 15 percent Black talent, including photographers and writers.
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“What we’ve seen is fashion’s version of affirmative action. And I don’t think anyone asked for that. That’s the issue: The industry puts a Band-Aid on what’s actually happened, as it’s happening. Look at the runway: So designers decide to use more Black models. Great — that’s great for visibility on the runway. What does the team behind the scenes look like? When you have magazines that all of a sudden want to put Black designers on the cover, who’s styling it? Who’s shooting it? What’s the team involved?It’s that pacifier: Here you go, here are these covers, for the next few months, of us using Black photographers and using Black designers. But also, let’s use the same Black photographers, let’s use the same Black designers, let’s use the same one or two Black stylists. When there’s so many more.”Inspired in part by his time at fashion school, where he found no curriculum on Black design history or the impact of Black culture on design, Antoine Gregory began cataloging Black designers, first on Twitter, then on his own website, Black Fashion Fair. In 2020, his platform became shoppable.
“As an editor, one of the interesting things you come across, which I didn’t expect until it happened, was that brands would outwardly say: ‘We care about diversity.’ Then you go to the shows, and you can count on one hand how many people of color are seated front row. There’s a token person of color used for campaigns, and when you request for a shoot, talent that isn’t white is too often labeled “not on brand” or doesn’t have ‘the right aesthetic.’ Brands have gone for too long making token efforts and no real commitment to inclusivity.”Lindsay Peoples Wagner, a founder of the Black in Fashion Council and the new editor in chief of The Cut, has built a career in fashion magazines with inclusivity as a focus.
“We’ve done everything on our own since the very beginning. And while in some ways that is good, we do feel like we should have some support at this point, especially because we are Black and queer and everyone loves to talk about that. But nobody actually wants to talk about what that means systemically. It feels like we’re trotted out sometimes when there needs to be a conversation about identity politics — 100 percent, we feel used. But it just makes me want to participate more, to say what I want to say, because it’s so much easier to speak on a bigger platform.”Arin Hayes founded No Sesso, Italian for “No Sex/No Gender,” with Pierre Davis in 2015 to celebrate nonconformity. Based in Los Angeles, the label is now co-designed with Autumn Randolph and counts Erykah Badu and Gabrielle Union among its fans.
“When I was first scouted, and when the agencies that were representing me wanted me to travel the world, there was this super tokenism that was happening. Even when I did leave Canada and moved to Europe, and did these exclusive couture shows, it was ridiculous. I was appalled that not only was I the only Black model in some shows or campaigns, but I was encouraged by clients, by my agents and by some peers to be the only Black person on the job. It happens in every industry, unfortunately, when the people who are oppressed feel like there’s only a limited amount of room for them, so they feel pressure to compete against each other unnecessarily.”The Eritrean-Canadian model Grace Mahary got her big break walking for Givenchy in 2012, but her work as a global activist crystallized when she created Project Tsehigh (PjT) in 2015 to provide consistent, sustainable electricity to developing communities in Eritrea, Tanzania and elsewhere.
“Look, I definitely think it’s better late than never. But had some of this attention come earlier, it would have been incredibly helpful for my business. Especially in terms of fund-raising, because the better your name is known, the easier it is to fund-raise. And fund-raising is a very, very difficult process for any small business, but in particular for people of color and even more so for women.”In October, Carly Cushnie shuttered her namesake label after 12 years in business. Like many other Black business owners, Ms. Cushnie received a wave of new attention last summer from customers, media, influencers and even investors. For her, that attention came too late.
“I’ve had a lot of C.E.O.s reach out to me after BLM and say, ‘I didn’t really know.’ Or, ‘I don’t think we were doing enough.’ When we were starting, retailers would say to us, ‘We can’t have you in our stores.’ Or, ‘You have to take the picture of you four young men off the hang tag because it looks like a gang, and we don’t want those type of people shoplifting or having shoot outs in our stores.’ In Georgia they tried to ban us. We couldn’t sell the color red because it was gang-affiliated.But I don’t take people’s ignorance personally. We used to say sometimes, when our counterparts in the industry didn’t understand something: ‘Guess what guys? If they understood it all, we wouldn’t be here.’”Fubu, or For Us by Us, was one of the first disruptive hip-hop clothing brands. Created in 1992 by four friends from Queens — Daymond John, Keith Perrin, Carlton Brown and J. Alexander Martin — it grew into a $350 million-a-year brand. Though it fell out of favor in the mid-2000s, it has recently been reintroduced via collaborations and, as of December, a whole new line.
So What Happens Now?
We will continue to track metrics going forward, to see where and when change does happen and report back during the fashion shows in September and February — since, despite their splintering, such events are still the closest thing the industry has to annual gatherings.
Meanwhile, in the absence of a single unifying watchdog or set of goals, a number of initiatives have been created to spur further change.
Last month, the Council of Fashion Designers of America announced the start of a talent pipeline called Impact, to “support and nurture Black and Brown creatives and professionals in fashion.” The goal is to connect fashion companies and organizations with Black industry professionals seeking jobs, freelance opportunities and paid internships.
Also in February, the Black in Fashion Council and IMG joined with the model Joan Smalls and the nonprofit Color of Change for the #ChangeFashion initiative, to provide a road map for fashion companies concerning racial justice and inclusivity.
A number of different marketplaces have also emerged to raise awareness around and sell items by Black-owned businesses, including the Black Fashion Fair, founded by Antoine Gregory, and Black Owned Everything, founded by Zerina Akers.
But while some establishment retailers have also highlighted Black talent in their stores or online — offering pop-up shops during Black History Month, for instance — Mr. Gregory suggested these efforts can be misguided.
“That creates otherism. It’s fashion’s version of segregation,” he said. “We’re not asking to be in our own little space — we’re asking to be included.”
Written by Vanessa Friedman, Salamishah Tillet, Elizabeth Paton, Jessica Testa and Evan Nicole Brown.
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