Runways Are Still Ethnically Homogeneous

When Halle Berry appeared on the cover of Vogue’s September issue this year—the first black woman to do so since Naomi Campbell in 1989— many thought it was a sign of racial barriers being broken down. Reporters at TheLoop21 sifted through photos of New York Fashion Week shows to see if the week-long event had become any more diverse. But according to their findings, it hasn’t. Out of 4,699 models, 8.6 percent were African-American, 7.3 percent were Asian, and 2.4 percent were Latino. Out of 144 shows, 25 featured no models of African-American descent, 19 had no models of Asian descent, and Latinos appeared in only 63 shows. There was not one show without a Caucasian model. The website noted that Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. show did a good job of diversifying models racially, but the majority, unfortunately, did not.