An unfamiliar face
‘A FEW YEARS AGO, IT WAS ABOUT NONWHITE MODELS. NOW THERE’S A LOT MORE TALK ABOUT SIZE, AGE AND TRANSGENDER’
set the room alight at the Max Mara show in Milan in February. On a runway populated by supermodels old and new – Natasha Poly, Gigi Hadid, Isabeli Fontana – it was the Somali-American former Miss Minnesota USA pageant contestant Halima Aden, in a hijab, who sparked fervent chatter on the front row.
The level of buzz was surprising considering Halima, 19, had only ever appeared on two runways: her debut in Kanye West’s Yeezy show earlier that month during New York Fashion Week, and in the Alberta Ferretti show soon after. But she had become a talking point during the AW17 shows, a season that, according to website The Fashion Spot, was the most inclusive on record.
‘Halima’s appearance created buzz for all the right reasons,’ says Ian Griffiths, creative director of Max Mara. ‘When our customers see diversity in the models we work with, it’s easy for them to identify with the collections. Max Mara has a tradition of making real clothes for real women. We wanted to celebrate that by making our runway reflect our reality. If you were to take a stroll down New Bond Street, Avenue Montaigne or any other top-end shopping street, it would be no surprise to see a Max Mara coat worn with a hijab.’
For decades, the fashion world has been the target of enduring criticism for using models who are largely white, waifish and woefully young. But at the shows in February, not a day went by without a refreshing counterpoint to this historical, narrow ideal. Dries van Noten, Simone Rocha, Dolce & Gabbana and J.Crew celebrated women of all ages by casting models such as 70-year-old Jan de Villeneuve, 73-year-old Benedetta Barzini and 67-year-old Barbara Math to wear their collections. Michael Kors, Prabal Gurung and Osman were among designers embracing more realistic body types with casts that included stunning women larger than sample size such as Ashley Graham, Marquita Pring and Candice Huffine. Meanwhile, more women of colour appeared on runways at the main four fashion weeks, with London, Milan and Paris having their most racially wide-ranging season ever.
Diversity has had a rocky road, thanks to marketers who have used the term to the point of redundancy. But the need for it remains, and its meaning has evolved significantly. Until recently, diversity referred largely to race. When I started my magazine journalism career 15 years ago, in the era when the eastern European model ruled the catwalk, I wrote a story about the lack of black women on the runways and in advertising campaigns. I wrote the story several more times in the runway seasons that followed because the problem hadn’t improved. But this year, the progress in the AW17 shows looked more substantial, and not only in terms of race, as if the fashion world was beginning to recognise in earnest the power of representing a wider range of beauty. The curvy kind, the brown kind, the transgender kind and the older kind.
Jennifer Davidson, editor-in-chief of The Fashion Spot, says: ‘The biggest change I’ve seen is the definition of diversity.’ In 2014, the popular New York-based website began tracking the runways as a way to hold the fashion industry accountable and highlight which brands have a history of ignoring entire demographic segments. ‘When we first began, we were really talking about the use of non-white models,’ continues Jennifer. ‘But in recent seasons, there’s a lot more talk about size, age and transgender.’
Could it be that, after all the size-zero outrage, cultural-appropriation debates and underage drama, the fashion industry is finally embracing a more inclusive future? And, more importantly: will it last?
‘I’d say we’re in a good place,’ says James Scully, one of fashion’s most notable casting directors. Known for his longstanding working relationships with designers including Stella McCartney and Tom Ford, he’s now most famous for calling out model discrimination and mistreatment. During the Paris Fashion Week shows in February, James shamed Lanvin on his Instagram account for allegedly telling agents not to send black models for consideration in its AW17 Paris show and criticised Balenciaga’s casting directors for locking models in a dark stairwell, with no food or water, during the staff’s lunch break. The response was immediate: Lanvin featured black models in its show and Balenciaga fired its casting directors. So in a way, mission accomplished.
A growing culture in which people boldly call out bad behaviour is contributing to ‘the momentum [around diversity],’ says James. ‘The activist Bethann Hardison started the fight by calling out discrimination more than a decade ago. Now, you have millennials on social media coming into the business and making their voices heard. In the course of a few years, we’ve gone from having no diversity to now having not just racial diversity, but diversity of the world.’