NY Fashion week gets it : black is the new black

Let's hope we're not putting our mouth on the fashion industry by speaking too quickly but it finally seems like the message of diversity is getting through to the fashion types. Maybe it's the Obama effect, as the NY Times put it, (or as Tracy Morgan  more succintly put it: "black is the new president, bitch!") but the recently concluded New York Fashion Week was far more colourful than any in recent times.

[caption id="attachment_704" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="Islandista Jourdan Dunn was one of the big winners, walking in 20+ shows and opening for both old guard designers such as Oscar de la Renta (pictured) and new guard designer Jason Wu, who famously designed First Lady Michelle Obama's inauguration ball gown"][/caption]

Jezebel did an exhaustive (seriously, that must have been time consuming- really got to large them up for taking the time to go through all of the pics on style.com and break it down- whew!) study of the week and concluded that some 18% of the spots in fashion shows were given to models of colour. Their analysis:

There were 116 labels that held shows at the recently ended New York fashion week; that's 3,697 spots in runway and presentation lineups. Of those, 668 were given to models of color — which, at just over 18%, is 6% better than one year ago. (And certainly better than in the fall of 2007, when WWD reported that one-third of the New York shows used no models of color at all.)

They even did graphs breaking down the race of the models of colour used. Of that number, 41% were black, 36% were Asian and 22% Latina, with 1% being other ethnicities.

While this is no where close to being an accurate representation of the racial composition of the United States, which is 26% non-white, it is encouraging progress so let's give credit where credit is due.

Now, it's on to Milan Fashion Week, which, while known for being very vanilla, also produced the iconic all-black Italian Vogue. So here's hoping...

Et tu Milan Fashion Week?

Surely you would imagine that after all the talk in the last year about the lack of colour on the runways, and with Italian Vogue putting out their big-selling 'all black' issue this summer, that the runways for Milan Fashion Week would be more colourful.

Alas ... not.

According to our friends at Shophound who have been following the shows in Milan (though not actually there covering as they did for NY Fashion Week), the numbers have been disappointing.

The runways at Milan Fashion Week looked kinda like this. See the one black spot?

Bottega Veneta led the way with a 17% 'diversity quotient' consisting of four black models and one Asian out of 28 total models.

After that, it's all single-digit DQs. Depressing.

Way behind, was D&G, with four models of colour - three black models and one South Asian model out of 51 models in total, to have a DQ of 8.9 %.

DSquared had a DQ of 9.6% for having 2 models of colour - one black, one Asian, out of 21 models.

Gucci, which just signed Rihanna to be their spokesperson in their first ever UNICEF campaign, had a measly DQ of 4 % which represented a whopping one model of colour, out of 25.

It infuriates me how so many of these luxury brands are willing to ride on the popularity and influence of black celebrities and of hip-hop culture in particular which has glorified and glamorised them but then people of colour are not good enough for their campaigns. We market them and push them but there is hardly any reciprocity and it's not right.

Fashion season analysis: more colourful?

(photo credit: The Shophound)

So New York and London's Fashion Weeks have whizzed by in the last fortnight or so and Milan and Paris are still to come.

The question, especially relevant to us islandistas is - has there been more colour on the runways? Have we been seeing women like ourselves (well, not really like ourselves because the average islandista is not 6 feet tall but you get our point) reflected?

The fashion industry has been taking some licks over the last year or so over its lack of diversity with women such as Naomi Campbell (one of our favourite islandistas, even though she's crazy scary), Bethann Hardison and Iman speaking out. The industry responded, tetchily and defensively at first but then with a few efforts, most notably the Italian Vogue all-black special which set the fashion industry alight.

So, has this all had any impact at all where it matters - on the runways and in the magazine pages? For New York's Fashion Week, blog Shophound maintained a Diversity Quotient which they included at the end of every review. They also did a full report, listing the DQ for all of the shows  they attended.

So what did it show? Well, things have gotten marginally better at least. Instead of just the token one black model (or none at all) designers have been making the effort to include two or three per show. Prominent black designer Tracy Reese led their stats, with 36% of her models being non-white. John Bartlett was close behind with 30% diversity. Brian Reyes followed with 27% and Ports 1961 and Ruben Singer both had 25%. At the other end of the scale, Jil Stuart had a measly 6.4% diversity quotient.

According to Reuters, Diane von Furstenburg, who as head of the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) had urged designers to consider more diversity for their shows this season, also featured a number of black models as did DKNY. There was even a  young black albino model, 17 year old Shaun Ross, who was featured in the Patrick Ervell show.

Still many shows only featured one or no models of colour. And things were even more woeful for Asian and sub-continental Asian models. In fact, Shophound reported that Lakshmi Menon was the only South Asian model featured. And we know islandistas come in all colours so this still does not augur very well.

Designer Michael Angel claimed:

"I don't ever think about color, nor do I think of race. That is the most backward way to think."

Hmm. Funny. His DQ was a measly 6%. Which actually represented a whopping one black model out of 19- Anabela, who modeled 3 out of 44 looks. Hmm. I guess he's trying hard not to be too 'backward'.

Anyhow, things are changing slowly or rather we should say moving slowly because truthfully it is still too early in the game to know if this represents a real shift or if it is just a temporary response to the blacklash of the last year. They say black never goes out of style but in fashion that has just not been the case.

Islandista catwalker, the Dominican (Republic) model Arlenis Sosa, armed with her brand new Lancome contract, got quite a bit of attention, as did Sesilee Lopez. Both were featured in the all-black issue of Vogue. Sosa actually made her fashion week debut in NYC and walked for some pretty big names such as Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen, Narciso Rodriguez and Tommy Hilfiger. So that Italian Vogue issue is already starting to do its work.

Naomi sees a change. She says she is encouraged enough by the black representation on the catwalks that she is considering bowing out of the business. In an interview with the Times of London, she commented:

"This time they [designers and editors] have stepped it up. I feel positive. That means that I can go soon."

Really, it remains to be seen. I think we all  - bloggers, consumers, models, designers and so on, need to continue holding their feet to the fire.

So let's do that.