The Black in Fashion Council is not just a step, but a bridge to the future of fashion + beauty
consideration
Hopefully by now you've read this important piece by Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Teen Vogue’s editor-in-chief, who interviewed over 100 Black people in the fashion industry to give us all a glimpse of their experiences and the discrimination they’ve had to deal with throughout their wide-ranging careers. It’s the closest thing we have to an anthology on the matter considering fashion is rarely discussed in any official capacity, especially when it pertains to Black people.
If you haven’t, do. Until we’re all moving closer to a shared understanding of the issues at hand, what’s being discussed in this essay will have very little meaning.
Following the questionably sincere statements of remorse, with vague promises tacked on, the public disclosures of brands and media organizations, which covered up institutionalized racism and turned a blind eye to those perpetuating it, the subsequent resignations that evaded responsibility altogether a lot of us wondered what would come of this. Obviously the people and organizations steeped in these issues weren’t equipped to actually deal with them. What would change if change continued, as it usually has, to be discussed as a nebulous concept?
Enter: The Black in Fashion Council.
Founded by Peoples Wagner and fashion publicist/ consultant Sandrine Charles, the Black in Fashion Council is what happens when the fashion and beauty industries don’t thwart efforts by those who truly understand what’s needed to move forward.
The Council will not be the industry’s watchdog— a position held by the people who run the instagram Diet Prada (though it’s important to note the page is not without its own biases and oversights)— rather, they intend to be the leaders in not only making it impossible for brands and companies to make excuses for prejudiced practices, but also making accountability a word that doesn’t immediately put individuals and organizations on the defensive.
Their mission for this long overdue initiative is straightforward:
The Black in Fashion Council was founded to represent and secure the advancement of black individuals in the fashion and beauty industry.
As a collective, we envision a world in which black people in fashion and beauty spaces can be open and honest, guaranteed equal rights, and be celebrated for our voices.
While we are working on our end, we encourage people in the industry to rise to the occasion to sustain long-term change.
In an article published by The Cut, Peoples Wagner further explained the purpose of The Council:
“We are really coming at this through trying to allow people to rise to the occasion of changing,” said Peoples Wagner. “I use that wording very specifically because I think, too often, we have just called people out and then tried to shame them into it, and not given them the tools and resources or had necessary two-way conversations.”
Peoples Wagner and Charles are approaching this holistically in order to address the various ways in which systemic racism occurs, overtly and covertly, in the fashion and beauty industry. They will collect data on: employee demographics to target hiring discrimination; company culture to address career stagnation, and their commercial outputs to evaluate how companies are communicating with the public and offering opportunities equitably. They will compile this data into an index score that is released annually, beginning in June 2021, and work directly with companies to not only address their shortcomings but also rectify them over the three-year span participants agree to partner with The Council. Along with this they are creating a directory of people from across the industry and giving all brands an opportunity to purchase this resource to begin immediately adjusting their current practices.
Companies who have already signed on will be working over the next six months with council members, who come from a lot of different departments and companies within the fashion and beauty industries, to promptly begin aligning themselves with the standards defined by The Council.
In this article published by Vogue, Charles told the magazine she hopes brands of all sizes will see themselves as part of this conversation:
“We’d like everybody to participate; we don’t want to segment based on larger brands or smaller brands. We really want this to be a collective of everyone, so we built out an industry standard of what we want diversity and inclusion to look like moving forward.”
Although larger, more established brands certainly have more influence in our culture than smaller, growing brands, it's vital these measures for deliberate anti-racism become embedded in every aspect of the fashion industry. Both so that change can be a long-term, sustained effort that becomes ingrained in how companies operate and so the industry may become as inclusive as it’s often believed itself to be.
While the time for words to become action in the fashion and beauty industries has long passed, the Black in Fashion Council is ensuring that there are no further delays.