Designers Absent From The Runway: Fashion’s Race Problem
There is something glaringly missing from the lineup for New York Fashion Week. Take a look at the 260 shows listed for men’s and women’s fashion and you’ll only find three with any global reach are by African-American designers: Tracy Reese, Public School, and Hood by Air. You could include Cushnie et Ochs since co-designer, Carly Cushnie is Afro-Caribbean.
If you go further and include smaller brands with annual revenue of less than $1 million, you could include brands such as Harbison, Pyer Moss, and LaQuan Smith. Still this represents just over 2.7 percent of the shows being presented by Black designers.
“This mirrors the percentage of African-American designers who are members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America: approximately 12 out of 470,” reports The New York Times.
While there has been a major push to get more models of color on the runway, somehow the inclusion of Black models has been overlooked.
“There were more high-profile black designers in the 1970s than there are today,” said Bethann Hardison, founder of the Diversity Coalition. At that time there were such designers as Willi Smith, Stephen Burrows, Arthur McGee, Scott Barrie, Jon Haggins. “We’re going backwards,” adds Hardison.
There are, of course, some designers who are very successful who don’t show at Fashion Week, such as Edward Wilkerson of Lafayette 148 and b Michael, which you can buy at Macy’s.
Still with fashion most often being driven by urban (aka Black) culture, it would seem the industry’s major fashion shows should be more inclusive. Add to this the buying power of the Black consumer, estimated will reach $1.3 trillion by 2017. Meaning Blacks have money to spend on fashion.
But for a number of possible reasons, fewer Blacks are entering the field. Fashion school isn’t cheap. Parsons and Pratt run $61,182 and $59,206 a year, with room and board (they have a student body comprised of 3.31 percent and 1.9 percent Black respectively). F.I.T. is $12,850 for undergraduate in-state residents ($24,490 out of state). Being that the median income of the African-American household is about $33,000, fashion school could be prohibitive.
And fewer than a handful of the designers who apply for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, a vital mentoring program are African-American. For the second year in a row, the CFDA has done a web series in honor of Black History Month featuring profiles of Black designers and in March it will host a “diversity panel” in conjunction with Hardison to discuss “the obstacles and importance of incorporating diversity into all facets of the fashion industry.”
Finally, cuts to arts programs at public schools have lessened exposure to Black children.
But there are small steps being taken. For instance, that CFDA program we mentioned. And First Lady Michelle Obama’s choice to wear a number of outfits by Black designers, is working to open up fashion’s doors. She held the first Fashion Education Workshop, an expression of the first her “Reach Higher” initiative, to expose students to fashion professions.
But even if more Blacks are encouraged to and have opportunity to enter the fashion world, much more needs to be done to make sure they are welcomed.
