Better Lives Blog Post 1

Diversity. What is ‘diversity’?

Definition: Diversity

• The state or fact of being diverse; difference; unlikeness:

~ diversity of opinion

• Variety; multiformity
• The inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, colour, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, etc.:

~ diversity in the workplace

• A point of difference.

(from dictionary.com)

Diversity has been a very prominent word around us these few years. People of Colour are demanding more diversity from White People, the people who are at the head of a lot of these industries. (The rest of this post will be focusing on the fashion industry.) When you look around, we’ve seen many different attempts and implementations of diversity. Whether that be adverts with interracial families, models with disabilities, more black and asian models on the runways, models of all body sizes, hijabi models becoming more prominent, etc. While some of the inclusion feels sincere a lot of it is very clearly just done to keep People of Colour off of their backs and to maintain good pr.

What do I think about all of this? I am a light skin black South African girl who immigrated to England, with my mother and sister, when I was 3 years old. I do agree with the sentiment that we need more diversity in the Fashion Industry. I want to see more people who look like me and even more people who don’t look like me. The Fashion Industry is slowly but surely listening to it’s audience.

Although brands include different races, sexualities, identities, ages, stature, body sizes in their runways, look books, adverts and editorial shoots. The execution can sometimes feel very awkward and that is most probably because the people behind the scenes, the designer’s, stylists, photographers etc. are mostly white with like 1 or 2 people of colour.

And so, how do we become better as an industry? Well the people at the top, the people with the money, the people with the most power have to commit to hiring photographers, designers, stylists, models, creative directors etc. that aren’t white, heterosexual and able-bodied. And commit to letting them tell their own and other people’s stories from their perspectives. And it needs to be the people at the top of the industry because they are the gatekeepers of the industry. And it can’t just be a phase, it has to be something so common that we’re not surprised when we hear about renowned magazines or labels having disabled photographers, Asian designers, Muslim creative directors etc.

Those of us who are just starting out in fashion are trying our best to break down these barriers but the entire industry needs to join in for any long lasting change to happen.