The Most—and Least—Diverse Catwalks at New York Fashion Week
Models walk the runway at the Zac Posen Fall Winter 2016 fashion show during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 15. (Photo: Catwalking/Getty Images)
New York Fashion Week helps set the stage for the year’s upcoming trends, with the 2016 extravaganza featuring sneaker stilettos, neckties molded into hats, and trash bag–inspired skirts. While designers covered a wide range of styles, they also employed a more varied cast on the catwalk than in previous seasons.
The shows, which wrapped up on Feb. 18, featured the most diverse array of models in recent history, according to a report released Tuesday by The Fashion Spot.
Tallying the models at 120 shows, the group found that 31.9 percent of models were people of color, a 3 percent boost from the September event. The overall percentage of nonwhite models has increased incrementally over the past several New York Fashion Weeks, from 20.9 percent in the fall of 2014 to 22.6 percent in February of 2015 to 28.4 percent in September of 2015.
During February’s event, brands Brandon Maxwell, Sophie Theallet, and Chromat subverted homogenous beauty standards by featuring models of colors wearing more than half of their collections. Kanye West continued his legacy of diverse runway shows, using only models of color for his collection, Yeezy Season 3. Zac Posen employed 25 black models to embody his collection, which was inspired by Ugandan Princess Elizabeth of Toro—a diplomat and lawyer who also has graced the pages of Vogue.
"Since the inspiration was Elizabeth of Toro it made sense to have a casting reflecting this," Posen told CNN. "Their presence and the diversity of the casting compl[e]mented the collection and made it more striking."
Selecting black models to showcase his designs may have seemed natural to Posen, but several brands only featured one or two models of color. Pricy denim brand R13 featured only one person of color out of 21 models strutting down the catwalk. Rachel Zoe only sent two models of color down the runway out of 22, according to The Fashion Spot’s figures. Collections from Monse, Yigal Azrouël, and A.P.C. also featured either one or two models of color.
While this year’s event was the most diverse yet, The Fashion Spot points to these designers as evidence that the industry as a whole has room to improve.
"While watching the shows, there was a noticeable improvement and it was gratifying to see that the numbers confirmed that fact," Jennifer Davidson, The Fashion Spot's managing editor, told Mic. "However, there were still some runways that were overwhelmingly white, which shows that designers and casting directors still need to do better."