For an industry built on innovation, dynamism and jaw-on-the-floor creative moments, there seems to have been a somewhat dull-witted shift towards diversity in fashion. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, for instance, there were countless examples of social media-driven, pro-inclusivity tokenism on the part of brands, with very little in the way of meaningful subsequent change.
Indeed, according to a somewhat damning “Black Representation In Fashion” report compiled by the
New York Times recently, there is still only one black chief executive – Virgil Abloh at Off-White – working at any one of the 64 global fashion brands which were included in the study.