RACISM IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

Its confusing to me why racism is still so prominent in the fashion industry today. It seems to me to be subtle, maybe even unintentional racism but why in such an activist industry is this being allowed to happen? In the Council of Fashion Designers in America, only 3% of members are black. At the last New York Fashion Week, less than 10% of designers were black; this is especially upsetting as it may be a case of talent within the black community that will go undiscovered because they may not have the means for recognition. Only 15% of models on the runway were black. This lack of representation has to stop.

Progress is being made but not nearly enough. In the last year, several black people have made great strides in the industry. Virgil Abloh became the first black male men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton. British Vogue have welcomed Edward Enniful as their first black editor- in - chief. Tyler Mitchell has recently become the first black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue - upon request of Beyonce who was on the cover. These are baby steps but in no way will these actions eradicate the institutionalised racism with in the industry.

Small things such as a lot of stylists not being able to style black hair mean black models may not get booked for jobs and this leads to further lack of representation. I read about one story where Gabriella Karefa Johnson spoke about a moment a white person said they wanted “boxer braids.” She asked whether the person meant cornrows, to which they replied “No, cornrows are nasty.” Sadly, she thought to herself “I don’t have the time to tell you why it is so fundamentally racist and problematic that you would use the term nasty to describe a hairstyle that you are now co-opting.”

Stories like this are just the tip of the iceberg - underlying people need to be better educated about black culture and living in 2018 you'd think we’d be integrated in each others cultures now but there’s a long way to go before that happens in the world let alone the fashion industry