Beauty is difference: Diversity in fashion

London, United Kingdom

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which legally ended segregation in America. 11 years later, in 1975, Beverley Johnson became the first black model to land the cover of American Vogue. Think about that, in just 11 years Black became beautiful. However, a black model would not lead a major cosmetics campaign until 1993, when Veronica Webb became the face of Revlon. Meanwhile, French Vogue refused to allow a black model to grace the cover of Paris Vogue until 1988 and only after Yves Saint Laurent threatened to withdraw their advertising after it refused to place Naomi Campbell, or any black model on its pages. 

Fashion has certainly come a long way since then - but how far?

I started with the striking down of Jim Crows Laws and Beverley Johnson because I think it serves as an interesting example of how conceptions of beauty change. We often think of beauty as something fixed but far from being fixed beauty like fashion is a trend. This is important because that trend, that conception, is set in a massive part by the fashion industry! The big brands shape society's idea of what constitutes beauty through the type of models they choose to walk the runway, who they choose to dress in their clothes in advertising campaigns and the mannequins they choose to display their clothes in stores. These all help shape our conception of what beauty is. If you don’t believe that consider that, far from the almost skeletal models that grace many runways today, ancients humans saw the idolised women as voluptuous with large breasts, hips and a healthy stomach perhaps best demonstrated by the Venus of Willendorf a statue crafted between 24,000-22,000 BCE. In fact, artists continued to portray the “ideal” women as curvy all the way through to the 18th Century. So beauty is a trend and whilst the fashion community has become more diverse and inclusive in its conception of beauty it still has a long way to go. Consider the fact that in 2015 a formal study of mannequins surveying all national chain fashion stores on the high streets of Liverpool and Coventry found that every female mannequin in these stores had body sizes that corresponded to an underweight human. Consider too the outcry that Nike faced upon the inclusion of plus sized mannequins in its stores. Yes, there has been progress, New York Fashion Week saw 68 plus sized models walk a total of 19 shows for Spring 2020 up from 37 models in 12 shows the previous season. Meanwhile in 2017 France banned unhealthily thin models from mags and the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week. However, this has had little effect with Yves St Laurent coming under particular criticism in the press for its use of wafer thin models at Paris Fashion Week in 2019. 

Ask yourself - how many times in all the magazines, shop photos and tv adverts have you seen plus sized models advertising clothing? Then ask yourself how many disabled models you’ve seen on the catwalk or in advertising stores? I would suspect even less considering the first model in a wheelchair to feature at New York Fashion Week did so only in 2014! 

When we talk about inclusivity, particularly in terms of beauty what the fashion industry must strive for is diversity. To show that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. Fashion labels have the power, over time, to change what we see as beautiful, sadly more often that not they are failing to do so. Which brings us back to Naomi Campbell and a little something called moral licensing. In 1997 Naomi Campbell became the first black model to open a runway show for Prada and in doing so broke the glass ceiling for black models. But did she? How long do you think it took for another black model to open a runway for Prada? Over two decades (Anok Yai became just the second black model to open a runway for Prada in 2018)! This is because of a little something called moral licensing which is the idea that when humans do something good we are then more likely to do something bad because we feel like we’ve earned the right or more simply it’s when you break your diet and have a slice of cake because you went on a run yesterday. It is also why numerous studies show Americans got more racist after electing Obama because they felt that in electing a black president they had proven they weren’t racist and as such felt they had a broader licence to be racist. But it has a wider implication for society and that comes when someone breaks a glass ceiling because we open the door for one exceptional outsider like Naomi Campbell but then feel like we have permission to close it again in all the other outsiders faces because in opening it up to the first we’ve proved we aren’t prejudiced against the rest. That’s the reason that almost two thirds of countries that have elected a female head of state have never elected another, a list of countries that includes Brazil, France, Poland, Canada, Pakistan, Turkey, Croatia and Australia amongst others. Even here in Britain it took 27 years for us to elect a second female prime minister after Thatcher. That is why it took over two decades for a second black model to open a runway for Prada, that is why rather than usher in a more diverse generation of supermodels Naomi Campbell has largely been succeeded by white supermodels like the ones that preceded her. So for all the progress, it is startling that until 2018 and Alton Mason, Chanel, in its 109-year history, had never featured a black male model in one of its runways, in 2018 only two black models had ever featured as Chanel brides and those did so 14 years apart (in 2004 Alek Weh and in 2018 Adut Akesh) whilst in the 12 years before Jourdan Dunn graced the cover of British Vogue not a single black model featured on its cover, that is 12 years. So yes it is important to ask when will a major fashion house have a disabled model open it’s runway? But equally important to then ask when will it do so again?

 “How many times in all the magazines, shop photos and tv adverts have you seen plus sized models advertising clothing? Then ask yourself how many disabled models you’ve seen on the catwalk or in advertising stores?”

And the problems run deeper than just models. There is a dearth of diversity across not just models but the wider fashion industry. In November 2019, Naomi Campbell featured on the cover of the Guardian’s weekly lifestyle supplement and noted it was the first time she had been shot by a black photographer for a ‘mainstream’ fashion shoot in three decades. Meanwhile US vogue’s September 2018 cover was the first time a black photographer shot a cover of US Vogue in its 126 year history. Things are improving British Vogue appointed Edward Enniful, its first black editor, in 2017, whilst Louis Vuitton appointed its first black director, Virgil Abloh, in 2018. But the fashion industry remains dominated by white people - a survey found that 78% of models featured in fashion adverts are white. This is problematic because it means that the fashion industry still lacks a truly diverse range of voices. This has led to scandals around cultural appropriation (Gigi Hadid in dreads for Marc Jacobs, Gucci models in Sikh-style turbans, Victoria's Secret angels in Native American headdresses) and tokenism as Naomi Campbell noted that in August 2017 in the midst of Alexandra Shulman’s departure from Vogue, a staff photo depicted not a single black or ethnic minority member. So whilst the fashion industry can pat itself on the back for delivering its most diverse fashion season in 2019 with 47% of the models at New York Fashion Week being of colour, if Chanel appointing a white head of diversity, Dior and YSL’s ‘coolie’ hats, Burberry’s noose hoodies and H and M’s “coolest monkey in the jungle” hoodie advert are anything to go by, it still has a long way to go and now is certainly not the time to get complacent!

Samson Royston, February 2020