How Do We Make The Fashion World More Diverse?

As fashion month comes to an end, it´s time for reflection.

Beyond all the beautiful collections, street style pictures and parties, fashion faces a huge problem with diversity. 80 percent of the models walking the runway fall/winter 2015 were white. In 2014, the fashion industry´s 44 biggest magazines published 611 covers. Only 18 percent of the magazines featured non-white models. Of all the advertising campaigns published that year, 90 percent had white models.

In contrast to what the fashion world displays to consumers, the group that consumes fashion today is more diverse than ever. The world´s fastest growing luxury markets are Africa and the Middle East. The Asia-Pacific share of the luxury goods market has grown by 10 percent since 2007. Fast fashion has also become accessible for people around the globe thanks to e-commerce and social media. As an example, H&M has expanded their e-commerce to markets like Hungary and the Czech Republic. They have also expanded their presence of physical stores in new markets like Peru and Taiwan.

Why is diversity still such a huge problem in the fashion world? What can designers, bloggers, executives, companies, consumers and model agencies do? How do we make the fashion world more diverse?