New Report Proves The Fashion Industry Is Still Seriously Lacking Diversity

Joan Smalls walking the runway for Versace during Milan Fashion Week. Photo: Getty Images

A new report looking into the diversity of models walking during the spring/summer 2016 fashion shows has revealed that 79.4% of the models were white.

The study, undertaken by Business Of Fashion, discovered that of the 3,875 models walking the runways in New York, London, Milan and Paris, only 797 were non-white.

"It truly is disappointing that year after year the fashion industry continues to prove that it may be current in terms of looks on the runway, but is not current when it comes to its old fashion, dated vision on inclusion," Chelsey Jay of Models Of Diversity tells the HuffPost UK Style.

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"It is so damaging to society that the industry still allows for white dominance on the runway.

"People being fed this in media will, without even realising it, in their mind place people of colour on a lower platform than white people because that is what is being filtered to them as 'the norm' with this disgraceful tokenistic injustice."

The highest representation was black models, with 10.2%, while Hispanic models were the lowest at just 1.6 percent.​ Asian models made up 6.5% and "other" (which included those of Indian and Middle Eastern descent​) at just 2.35​.

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Dr. Ben Barry, Assistant Professor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Fashion at Ryerson University in Toronto says that "the fashion industry explains away the lack of diversity, using the bottom line — the 'black models don’t sell covers' excuse" and suggests in doing so that they are attempting to divert the onus onto the consumer.

"Blaming consumers for the lack of diversity in fashion advertising is not only misguided — it misrepresents their mindsets," Barry tells BoF.

"Not only do customers want to see diversity, they reject brands that whitewash their advertising. Instead of scapegoating the market, fashion should focus on its own belief system — a belief system that normalises a fashionable body as a uniform age, size and race."

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Barry conducted a survey, assessing the responses of 3000 women to advertising featuring women of different ethnicities, finding that black women were 1.5 times more likely to purchase a product advertised by a black model whereas Caucasian women's decisions were the same regardless.

"Black women told me that seeing a model that mirrored their race made them feel beautiful because they rarely saw black models in fashion advertising," he explained.

"They subsequently felt connected to the brand and inspired to celebrate their beauty by shopping from that brand... Caucasian participants identified with advertising that featured black models because they believed the brand upheld the values they aspired to, such as empowerment and inclusion. Caucasian women also explained that they could imagine the advertised outfit on themselves, regardless of whether or not they shared the model’s racial background."