This article is part of our Vogue Business Membership package. To enjoy unlimited access to Member-only reporting and insights, our NFT Tracker, Beauty Trend Tracker and TikTok Trend Tracker, weekly Technology, Beauty and Sustainability Edits and exclusive event invitations, sign up for Membership here.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across fashion and beauty in the last few years were, for some, a fleeting reaction and not a permanent commitment. What does a more inclusive industry look like to those committed to the cause? For the first time, we’ve brought together the leading voices and changemakers who have woven these causes into their careers and in doing so, are making progress towards a more equitable future for the long run, not just right now. There’s plenty more work to do — here’s where it’s starting.
De’Ara Balenger and Stacie Gillian
Founders | Maestra
Maestra is a social impact and cultural strategic consultancy that works with some of luxury’s biggest players to develop long-term strategic initiatives that improve equity while also improving the bottom line. The company was founded in 2019 by De’Ara Balenger, who worked for Hillary Clinton for 10 years and was engaged in law and politics as a crisis management attorney; and Stacie Gillian, who led strategy and media for companies such as Amazon Fashion and Fred Leighton before working in communications and strategic partnerships, eventually as principal at IMG.
The founders wanted to prioritise a mission-driven approach when working with clients, packaging that message in the form of storytelling rather than educational workshops or short-term crisis-driven diversity and inclusion guidance. Their aim is to develop long-lasting institutionalised programmes for brands that improve conditions for marginalised people and build social impact. Maestra has developed long-term social impact projects such as Gucci’s Changemakers initiative, a community-based grassroots project that offers scholarships and support to diverse communities, and Tiffany Atrium, a social impact platform that advances professional opportunities for underrepresented groups.
Anita Chhiba
Founder | Diet Paratha
Diet Paratha is a creative agency and community platform dedicated to celebrating and boosting South Asian talent. It began life as an Instagram account in 2017, set up by New Zealand-born London-based Anita Chhiba, who is of Gujarati-Indian descent. Over the years, the platform has expanded to offer a range of services, including creative direction, casting, cultural consulting, production, brand partnerships and mentoring for young South Asian creatives.
Diet Paratha has partnered with the likes of Burberry, Byredo, Gucci and Vogue India. This year, the platform has been ramping up its efforts to create pathways and offer funding for young South Asian talent to enter the creative industries, where the community is underrepresented. Partnering with whiskey brand Johnnie Walker and Tamil-Indian Bridgerton star Simone Ashley, Diet Paratha expanded its Family Tree Mentoring Scheme to offer a £5,000 grant and a year of mentorship to six winners who submitted a bottle design. The platform also partnered with Estée Lauder Companies’s New Incubation Ventures and Indian e-commerce company Nykaa on their Beauty & You grant programme to offer funding to Indian founders and creatives. All the while, Chhiba has been a vocal advocate of South Asian creatives, highlighting emerging talent on her platforms and using her profile to boost representation.
Jeanne Friot
Fashion designer
Previously a designer at Balenciaga, Jeanne Friot launched her eponymous label in 2020, seeing an opportunity in sustainably made, female-designed, genderless French fashion that explores queer identity. Her collections are majority upcycled using deadstock from LVMH-backed platform Nona Source. Friot made her fashion week debut in June 2022 with a party-inspired presentation in the basement of the Palais de Tokyo that celebrated the joy of freedom and dancing.
Friot believes in using fashion to drive change and has been vocal about her political views. Last August, she produced a collaboration capsule with The Frankie Shop in response to the reversal of US abortion rights law Roe v Wade. The T-shirts and caps read, “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention”. All profits went to the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) in the US. Friot’s values-driven approach has tapped into a new generation of luxury consumers who are seeking brands that stand for something.
Jamie Gill
Founder | The Outsiders Perspective
Fashion brands haven’t sufficiently moved the needle when it comes to hiring a diverse workforce. One of the most common claims is that there isn’t enough diverse talent in fashion, particularly past entry-level. Should brands look to poach top candidates from other industries?
Jamie Gill — chair of the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) diversity and inclusion committee and executive director of independent womenswear brand Roksanda — founded The Outsiders Perspective in 2022 to offer networking and employment opportunities in fashion to people of colour who work in industries such as finance, legal or marketing. The idea is to apply their transferable skills and diverse perspectives to the fashion industry. While fashion still has a lot of work to do on diversity and inclusion behind the scenes, Gill sees recruitment as the first practical step that any company can take, which also has demonstrated benefits for the business, given that diverse teams drive higher profits. A number of leading companies, such as Burberry, Farfetch, Deloitte, Karla Otto, Meta, the BFC and Alexander McQueen, are on board and supporting the platform.
Victor Glemaud
Founder | In The Blk
Haitian-American designer Victor Glemaud is pushing for tangible change in the wake of 2020’s racial reckoning by creating employment opportunities — and the chance to forge connections — for Black individuals in fashion. Fourteen years after launching his namesake brand in 2006, Glemaud launched In The Blk (ITB), a non-profit association that brings together Black creatives to support the growth of Black-owned brands. In April 2023, the collective joined forces with Balmain, which is currently supporting the organisation’s mentorship programme. Through ITB, Glemaud’s goal is to ensure that Black designers retain access to resources and support beyond the fellowships and competitions only available to those at the very beginning of their careers.
Prabal Gurung
Fashion designer
Designer Prabal Gurung — who founded his namesake brand 14 years ago — wants to see fashion become more inclusive. As vice chair of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Gurung spearheaded the organisation’s first AAPI-centred mentorship initiative: a five-month challenge for three Asian, Asian American or Pacific Islander designers to receive funding and mentorship. Gurung’s goal is to change the conversation in the US fashion industry by decolonising and encouraging a more global outlook — and views this newly-launched initiative as a step in doing so. It’s a continuation of his previous work in this space; in 2021, the designer co-founded House of Slay in response to rising anti-Asian hate crimes, for which it received the CFDA’s Positive Social Impact award in 2022.
Denise Hu
Casting director
Influential Chinese casting director Denise Hu looks for beauty in the unconventional as she seeks to bridge the gap between Asian identity and Western model standards. Based in Shanghai, Hu casts diverse Asian models with unstereotypical features for luxury brands such as Loewe, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and Fendi. She fell into casting in 2017 when designer and Shang Xia creative director Yang Li and stylist Ellie Grace Cumming came to China to shoot with photographer Antoine d’Agata. Hu pioneered the concept of street casting in China — uncommon in a country that five years ago had only accepted models from professional agencies. Today, Hu works not only with international labels but also with homegrown designers such as Xander Zhou and Xu Zhi, helping them to create a national dialogue while striving to export their business globally. As Chinese consumers increasingly care about how they’re represented internationally, it’s a delicate balancing act for Hu to represent the local market while finding creative alignment with a luxury brand client.
Rebecca Hui
CEO | Roots Studio
Imagine if fashion had a way to tap into traditional designs and craftsmanship from around the world, to collaborate with Indigenous artists in rural communities across the planet without having to worry about stealing — or being accused of stealing — their designs or using them inappropriately.
This opportunity does exist; Rebecca Hui has created it. The company she founded, Roots Studio, works with Indigenous communities to identify business opportunities for their artwork and to create intellectual property protections to ensure the artists retain ownership over both their designs and how their designs are used. Roots Studio has collaborated with brands from Prana and Patagonia to, as of this fall, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Noah and Triple Five Soul, and over the summer, launched its own label, Rurban by Roots Studio, that was “co-created” with Indigenous artists. The Roots Studio approach — which ensures that artists have a say not only in how their artwork is used on a product, but in every step of bringing that product to the market, including how it is marketed or presented for retail — helps brands to avoid the kind of backlash or accusations of cultural appropriation that fashion has faced countless times before. But, more importantly for Hui, the partnerships enable rural communities to showcase their work to the world — diversifying and expanding the universe of ideas that fashion can incorporate into its products and designs (“There’s so much incredible talent out there that fashion has always missed,” she told Vogue Business in 2021), and helping to preserve artistic heritage around the world, and even reverse ongoing cultural loss, in the process.
Victoria Jenkins
Founder | Unhidden
Victoria Jenkins’s first foray into fashion was as a garment technologist, working with brands from Victoria Beckham to Allsaints and Sweaty Betty. However, a 10-day hospital stay in 2016 changed the course of her career, prompting her to found one of the industry’s most prominent adaptive fashion brands, Unhidden.
Her newfound disability, and interactions with other disabled people in hospital, revealed to Jenkins just how inaccessible most clothing is and how severely this can impact disabled people’s ability to get dressed independently and be comfortable and safe in their clothes. Unhidden’s seasonless collection aims to solve this, with features including adjustable sizing, zip entry, and longer back rises on trousers to support wheelchair users. The brand’s London Fashion Week show in February 2023 featured 30 models with disabilities and visible differences, a landmark occasion for representation in an infamously exclusive industry. Jenkins has since appeared on British television show Dragons’ Den, pitching to investors; delivered a powerful TED talk on ableism in fashion; and been vocal in the media about the barriers disabled entrepreneurs face in achieving and maintaining mainstream success.
Barbara Kennedy-Brown and Cheryl Konteh
Co-founders | Fashion Minority Alliance
Fashion Minority Alliance is a non-profit group that works with fashion and beauty stakeholders to foster diversity and inclusivity by uplifting BIPOC and underrepresented groups. Founded in 2020 by PR expert Barbara Kennedy-Brown and celebrity stylist Cheryl Konteh, what started as private conversations about the lack of representation in the industry and experiencing microaggressions at work between the two co-founders grew into a global network with over 40 founding committee members across a variety of roles and locations.
In 2023, Fashion Minority Alliance has developed a number of programmes including working with womenswear concept trade show White Milano to improve exposure of underrepresented designers at Milan Fashion Week; developing Little Hands In Fashion, a pipeline activation programme that encourages children aged eight to 14 from underrepresented backgrounds to take part in creative, fashion-focused activities and events; creating sponsorship opportunities for mid-management individuals from underrepresented backgrounds to take courses to advance; and sponsoring a number of summer courses and living wage internships for young people from underrepresented backgrounds. The alliance offers a global talent directory to connect companies with a pool of talent from underrepresented groups, as well as a living wage internship agency which allows people from minority backgrounds to access experience and employment opportunities. In addition, Fashion Minority Alliance offers a range of services, including mentorship, workshops, scholarships, school outreach programmes, incubator programmes, designer showcases, retail pop-ups and other community-based grassroots initiatives for minorities in fashion. The group has worked with a number of brands, such as Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Kors, Daily Paper, Wales Bonner and Browns.
Lamisa Khan, Zeinab Saleh and Sara Gulamali
Co-founders | Muslim Sisterhood
Muslim Sisterhood is an art collective and creative agency for Muslim women by Muslim women. Co-founders Lamisa Khan, Zeinab Saleh and Sara Gulamali — photographers and artists who initially started Muslim Sisterhood on Instagram as a photography project — have contributed to reframing perceptions of modest fashion by working with brands to improve their styling and increase Muslim representation across creative fields globally. After launching in 2017, Muslim Sisterhood has gone on to work with the likes of Converse, Daily Paper and Nike. Last year, Nike Swim partnered with the London-based creative agency to help bring modest swimwear to the right customers and communities via a campaign created by Muslim Sisterhood. The aim of the agency is to spotlight, unite and uplift Muslim women around the world by working with brands to bring more diversity to campaigns and projects.
Sharon Lloyd
Co-founder | Fashion Academics Creating Equality (Face)
A lecturer and former textile designer, Sharon Lloyd co-founded Fashion Academics Creating Equality (Face) in 2020 to challenge the lack of Black and brown academics in fashion and positively impact Black and brown students. The organisation delivers talks to UK universities about race inequity, and its 2022 See My Face student study captured data from across 50 UK academic institutions to highlight the psychological and educational trauma that Black, brown and minority leaders experience within higher education. Later this year, Face is launching the See My Academic campaign to ask Black, brown and minority academics if they feel their contribution to higher education is valued. In addition, Face creates opportunities for minority graduates to advance through its Face Excellence Prize and collaborations, such as its digital showcase of minority student talent via Christopher Kane’s platform.
Lloyd also leads the British Beauty Council’s race and equalities work within its education pillar and is co-chair of the council’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee, working with the Hair & Beauty Industry Authority to change the National Occupational Standards to ensure Black hairdressing became a standard core learning module for new hairdressers. Co-led by Lloyd, the committee is currently developing a resource kit to support inclusive practices in the classroom. Lloyd most recently served as course leader of the MA in make-up and hair design futures at Solent University.
Luca Magliano
Fashion designer
Luca Magliano is a rare designer on the Milan schedule. His genderless collections celebrating queer culture stand out in the very traditional Italian city, which has long been dominated by legacy players over new talent. Additionally, his dedication to size inclusivity in menswear has seen him regularly rank among the best shows for size inclusivity in Vogue Business’s seasonal report. Magliano was awarded the Karl Lagerfeld Special Jury Prize at the LVMH Prize in June this year. Before that, in January, the designer secured investment from Underscore District to help expand his business, with a new showroom, new studio and a goal to become the next Italian heritage brand with inclusivity at its core.
Ester Manas and Balthazar Delepierre
Co-founders | Ester Manas
Ester Manas and Balthazar Delepierre launched size-inclusive womenswear label Ester Manas in 2019 and continue to create the most size-inclusive shows and collections at Paris Fashion Week. Creating intricate designs for all bodies, the partners in life and work produce pieces that fit all bodies from a US2 to 18, using clever stretch technology and constructions. Stocked at stores like Matchesfashion, Selfridges and Ssense, for Autumn/Winter 2023, Ester Manas extended its offering to bridal, using the same stretch technology to create five bridal looks. Following its Andam special prize win this year, where the judges saw potential for the brand to develop a size-inclusive wardrobe, the brand decided to step back from showing at Paris Fashion Week for the SS24 season and is instead using the money to innovate in more categories, including size inclusive outerwear.
Emma Matell
Casting director
Specialising in scouting new talent on the street, London-based casting director Emma Matell helps brands tell stories via different bodies and lived experiences. She began her casting career fresh out of school in Copenhagen, Denmark, aged 14, shooting and casting for friends. Now, Matell works with brands including Diesel and Gucci, emerging design talents such as Sinead O’Dwyer and Paolina Russo and titles from The Face to Le Monde’s M magazine. O’Dwyer’s show, cast by Matell, was ranked the most size-inclusive show at London Fashion Week in the Vogue Business size inclusivity report and was the only one to feature a physically disabled model.
Louis-Gabriel Nouchi
Fashion designer
The French designer known for his gender-fluid creations and inclusive casting won this year’s Andam grand prize, which comes with €300,000 and a year of mentorship. It’s well deserved for the designer, who has been exploring sensuality in his work for about a decade, contributing to redefining masculinity along the way. Nouchi, who was obsessed with Yohji Yamamoto’s designs in his early years, studied medicine and law before finding his way to fashion. In 2014, while still a student at the prestigious Belgium design school La Cambre, Nouchi was among the 10 finalists at the Hyères festival and was offered by Galeries Lafayette the opportunity to create a capsule collection.
In 2017, he created his own menswear brand LGN, presenting his first collection for Autumn/Winter 2018. “Sensuality has been explored for decades for women. But, it’s either too cliché for a daily life in menswear, or you just have a certain point of view. We want to enlarge, and think in terms of materials, colours, how you wear something. It’s key,” he said in a recent interview. While size inclusivity in menswear is regressing per the latest Vogue Business report, Nouchi stands out with the brand ranking second. “As a designer, it’s my job to adapt to all bodies. I like unusual faces and bodies,” he said.
Sinead O’Dwyer
Fashion designer
Following her graduation from the Royal College of Art fashion MA, Irish designer Sinead O’Dwyer’s London Fashion Week debut in September 2022 set out her vision for the future of fashion. The show featured models size UK8-26, exploring silhouettes far beyond the typical ‘stretchy dress’ seen on the runway for bigger bodies, including shirting and tailoring that considers bigger busts or tailoring that fits a fuller frame properly. For O’Dwyer, studying fashion made her reassess her relationship with her body and examine who gets to enjoy fashion. Every garment was altered to fit the models in the show, but the sizing and scaling was then tweaked for production. O’Dwyer, who is currently stocked at Browns and Ssense, is also one of very few designers to design adaptive fashion for physically disabled customers and present adaptive looks on the runway. Her view is that brands should produce smaller collections and focus instead on making sure they’re suitable for a broader range of sizes and shapes.
Daniel Peters
Founder | Fashion Minority Report
As diversity, equity and inclusion efforts slow down following a burst of activity during the Black Lives Matter protests, fashion brands are seeking external counsel on how to move things along. Founded in 2020 by Daniel Peters, who previously held positions in events and production at Burberry and Selfridges, London-based consultancy Fashion Minority Report aims to increase diversity in the fashion industry by working with brands as well as with emerging talent.
Fashion Minority Report has consulted with companies such as Farfetch and Tapestry on how to develop a diversity and inclusion policy, and it offers workshops on topics such as allyship and equity. What sets the consultancy’s approach apart is that it is collaborative and builds on the work that a company has already done, reinforcing the good progress and identifying the gaps that could be improved in a way that makes companies feel comfortable with the gradual changes. It also offers a range of mentorship programmes for underrepresented talent, pairing young people of a variety of ages with industry professionals for mentoring or placing them in paid internship roles with brand partners to gain experience or insight into the creative industries. Fashion Minority Report also partnered with Asos to offer an incubation programme for ethnic minority-owned brands and worked with the British Fashion Council and The Outsiders Perspective to launch a diversity and inclusion-focused census for the UK fashion industry.
Lindsay Peoples and Sandrine Charles
Co-founders | Black in Fashion Council
Lindsay Peoples, the former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, and Sandrine Charles, a fashion publicist and consultant, launched the Black in Fashion Council in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. The platform is pushing for long-term representation and the advancement of Black individuals in the fashion and beauty industry, backed by the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). The platform partners with brands such as L’Oréal, Capri and Moda Operandi, who pledge to increase Black representation in both C-suite and junior-level positions. The Black in Fashion Council has worked with the likes of US conglomerate Capri, resale marketplace Depop and H&M. In February, it held the Black in Fashion Council Discovery Showroom during New York Fashion Week, in partnership with IMG, the American sports, events and talent management company, to spotlight eight Black designers including Nigerian brand Torlowei, LA’s Ellaé Lisqué and New York’s Madamette.
Celia Sears
Founder | Show Division
Diversity has increased on the catwalks, but models of colour note that the hair and makeup process backstage remains an issue. Many hairstylists aren’t trained to work with textured hair types, so some models may have to do their own hair, for instance, or bring their own foundation if the artist’s shade range isn’t broad enough. Milan-based agency Show Division is changing that.
Launched in 2015 by Celia Sears, a former model, Show Division provides backstage creative support for fashion shows, only working with hairstylists and makeup artists who have sufficient knowledge of all hair types and skin tones. Show Division’s team of hair and makeup artists work with some of the biggest players in fashion, including backstage at Pharrell Williams’s debut show for Louis Vuitton. This year, Show Division launched Inclusive Salon, a series of practical workshops designed to bridge the gap in quality between stylists who know how to work with textured hair and those who don’t, with the hopes of helping stylists grow their businesses by giving people with textured hair the confidence to visit any certified Inclusive Salon. It builds on Show Division’s in-person inclusive backstage masterclass, launched in 2018, which teaches artists who aren’t experienced with a diverse range of hair types and skin tones. In 2023 Show Division reached the next stage of research and development for an upcoming professional hair care line, Hair Fundamentals, which aims to help style and protect textured and chemically treated hair that often encounters extreme conditions backstage at shows.
Rylé Tuvierra
Content creator | The Fierce Walker
Rylé Tuvierra, also known as The Fierce Walker, is a digital creator and trans activist who works to champion the work of LGBTQ+ creators. Based in Barcelona, the Asian-Arab creator works regularly with luxury brands on their inclusivity efforts and has collaborated with the likes of Farfetch, Luisaviaroma, Revolve and Puma. She’s currently in her second year of partnering with Jean Paul Gaultier on its perfume campaigns. The Fierce Walker Lab, Tuvierra’s content production and design agency, sets out to enhance brands’ visual strategies, orchestrate inclusive campaigns with LGBTQ+ talents and formulate marketing initiatives rooted in diversity and sustainability. Tuvierra is also the founder of wearable accessories brand Baby Drama. A portion of the winter collection’s proceeds will be donated to LGBTQ+ groups. An active participant in the digital fashion space, Tuvierra plans to partner with digital fashion startups to offer digital garments and digital ID and product lifecycle tracking capabilities.
Karoline Vitto
Fashion designer
Karoline Vitto is at the forefront of a new generation of female designers who are creating fashion for a range of body shapes and sizes. Growing up in Brazil, Vitto was conscious that the Eurocentric beauty standard didn’t fit her or many of her peers. Launching her label in 2020, Vitto, who studied fashion at Central Saint Martins, taught herself about the grading, manufacturing and development processes needed to create plus sizes after finding that pattern cutters couldn’t help her develop a UK size 28 (US 24) dress. Her sizing currently ranges from a UK 8 to 28. Vitto showed her debut collection for London-based emerging talent incubator Fashion East in September 2022. She will show her Spring/Summer 2024 collection at Milan Fashion Week in September 2023, supported by Dolce & Gabbana. Vitto’s designs, known for their sculpted metal frames and sensual silhouettes, have been worn by the likes of plus-size models Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee as well as singers Shygirl, Jojo Todynho and Duda Beat.
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
