June 2 will go down in history (or in infamy) as a day on Instagram. Black tiles flooded Instagram feeds as part of #BlackoutTuesday, a social campaign to raise awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement. It had been just a week since George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed by Minneapolis police. The incident sparked protests and calls for change across the country. The calls for an end to systemic racism, police brutality, and white supremacy were loud and valid. As a result, the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday went viral, with nearly 28 million posts.
Many businesses, including countless fashion brands, participated in #BlackoutTuesday, but for Black and brown people who work for these companies, the movement came across as performative, especially coming from an industry with deep roots in systemic racism, and it felt like a superficial show of solidarity that didn’t go far enough.
“We can’t just go back to putting up a black box and continuing to operate,” said Sandrine Charles, a New York-based public relations consultant. “We have to recognize what’s actually going on.”
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In June of this year, Charles, along with several other Black fashion industry figures, launched a series of initiatives to create a roadmap for accountability within the fashion industry: Charles and Teen Vogue editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner co-founded the Black in Fashion Council with the goal of creating a system to measure the level of inclusivity within companies, mirroring the Corporate Equality Index used by the Human Rights Campaign to benchmark issues related to people who identify as LGBTQ+.
Aurora James, designer and founder of accessories brand Brother Vellies, created the 15 Percent Pledge, an advocacy initiative encouraging major retailers (not just in the fashion industry) to allocate 15% of their seasonal purchases to black-owned businesses to reflect the 15% black population in the country.
Fashion industry veterans Kibwe Chase-Marshall, Henrietta Gallina, and Jason Campbell launched the Kelly Initiative, named after designer Patrick Kelly, in June, calling for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) to meet to consider conducting an industry study and audit of the fashion industry’s headhunting and recruiting sectors. A few months later, the CFDA formed a Black Advisory Council to guide the trade association and its members toward sustainable diversity and inclusion efforts and develop programs to provide opportunities for Black talent. Spearheaded by newly appointed CFDA president Cassandra Diggs, the committee also includes Harper’s Bazaar’s Samira Nasr.
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Three months later, the fashion industry is in the midst of Fashion Month, the biennial circuit of New York, London, Milan, and Paris where brands present their collections to buyers and press. It’s the perfect time to reflect on the current state of the industry. Here, we spoke to each of the four organizations to get their thoughts on how (if at all) things have changed since June and what they’re doing to stay relevant.
Black in Fashion Council
“There’s only so much we can do in terms of canceling brands over and over,” Charles said. “And if we keep canceling them over and over, we’re not giving them the opportunity to do the right thing. We want to be a network for brands and companies.” To that end, Calvin Klein, Farfetch, Everlane, Gap, Glossier, L’Oreal, Intermix, PVH Corp., Moda Operandi, Tiffany & Co. and The RealReal are among the roughly 100 companies that have signed three-year agreements with the newly formed LLC.
Charles says the BIFC will continue to provide listening sessions, diversity and recruiting training, as well as developing an Equality Index scorecard to evaluate diversity within companies. “The short-term goal is to establish this industry standard,” she says. “We’re here to ensure Black representation and progress in fashion and beauty. We envision a workforce where Black people are represented and empowered at every level, from assistant level to C-suite level. We wanted to make it an opportunity for brands to step up and work with us.”
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During New York Fashion Week, BIFC partnered with IMG for two programs: a showroom that spotlighted collections from Spring Studio’s Teofilo, Undra Celeste and Kenneth Nicholson; and a town hall hosted by Charles and Peoples Wagner, where Studio 189 co-founders Abrima Elwia and Rosario Dawson discussed small businesses as agents of change; and designer Victor Gremaud discussed how fashion shapes and reflects cultural movements. “It’s important for us at IMG to create space for these conversations,” says Judy Matz, head of programming at IMG. “We want to shine a light on topics that aren’t often discussed.”
15 percent pledge
“We’ve made great strides,” James said. “Even though we only launched a few months ago, we’ve been able to partner with brands that have made huge commitments.” Already, giants like Sephora, Rent the Runway, Yelp, MedMen, and West Elm have taken steps to allocate a portion of their inventory to Black-owned businesses.
James hints that more partnerships are in the works, too: “We look forward to announcing those partnerships as they solidify,” she says.
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The Kerry Initiative
The Kelly Initiative, which began with an open letter signed by over 250 Black fashion professionals demanding that the CFDA convene a meeting to discuss an industry census and possible headhunting and hiring interventions, has followed up on the call for change with a four-point plan to “increase transparency and accountability in the fashion industry regarding the inclusion of Black professionals.”
“There aren’t many Black designers in full-time corporate roles,” Chase Marshall said. “We want to bring that to light, not just to big names like Dapper Dan and Virgil Abloh.”
The Kelly Initiative has also launched an editorial fellowship to support up-and-coming fashion and lifestyle writers who will spend six months working with industry experts to create content for the platform. “The idea is to foster networking and bridge the gap between the writing community and the creative community,” says Chase Marshall. “We want to create a space where young Black writers can collaborate with Black editors who have a certain level of cultural nuance built in.”
CFDA Black Advisory Council
In September, Diggs announced the formation of a Black Advisory Council, whose members include Harper’s Bazaar editor-in-chief Samira Nasr, Netflix’s Bozoma Saint John, Stacey Henderson of Fashion Tech Connects, CFDA member Martin Cooper, and designer Tracy Reese, who serves as vice chair.
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“Cassandra and I both see this not as jumping on a trend,” Reese says. “This is about taking our industry seriously and taking the CFDA seriously as an organization, because most people perceive it as the umbrella organization for our industry, which it isn’t, but it’s certainly perceived that way. We don’t have the authority to tell any company what to do. We can make suggestions, and we can lead by example, and to me, that’s the most important part. We start from the ground up, from our own foundation, which is why we’ve taken very thoughtful steps to get to this point, and we want to work in partnership with a lot of other organizations that are established. We’re not looking to compete with them at all.”
Each of these Black fashion initiatives addresses a specific issue in the industry, but all emphasize that there’s no competitive spirit — rather, their founders and members see themselves as part of a single chorus, all working towards the goal of changing discriminatory systems.
“Each organization has its own area of expertise and strengths, and I think we can support each other,” Reese says. “We work a little bit with the Black in Fashion Council, but some CFDA members belong to other organizations. I think each organization has a big impact, and I’m hopeful that in three, five years, we’ll start to see visible change coming together.”
Barry Samaha is the former Style Commerce Editor at Esquire magazine, where he covered all things fashion and grooming. He previously served as editor at Harper’s Bazaar, Surface, and WWD, and oversaw editorial content at Tod’s Group. He’s also a contributor to The Daily Beast, Coveteur, Departures, Paper, Bustle Group, and Forbes. He’s based in New York City and can’t seem to find a closet big enough to fit all his shoes.
