This week I spent time at an exhibition called Body Beautiful – Diversity on the catwalk at the National Museum of Scotland on Chamber Street, Edinburgh. It’s small and perfectly formed and looks at how the fashion industry has been challenged to champion alternative ideals of what beauty means on the catwalk…in advertising…in editorials…and behind the camera. Exploring the themes of disability, race, gender, size and age it gives a voice to those who are inspiring and driving change and, celebrates the more inclusive and diverse catwalks that are being created as a result.
The exhibition is the first of its’ kind to examine ways in which the fashion industry is addressing body positivity and Georgina Ripley, Senior Curator of Modern & Contemporary Fashion & Textiles at the museum believes that with attitudes shifting, this is a particularly exciting time in fashion.
In planning the exhibition, the team consulted a broad range of voices and experts in the field of diversity. Sinead Burke, Irish academic, writer, influencer, activist and broadcaster (popular for her 2017 TED talk on why design should include everyone), fashion commentator Caryn Franklyn, model Eunice Olumide and public speaker Jamie Windust all played a part.
Designs by Ferragamo, Pam Hogg, Ashish, Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood are brought to life through film, photography, fashion publications and catwalk ensembles, and the exhibition also draws on the work of the next generation of young fashion design students from Edinburgh College of Art’s Diversity Network. Bespoke mannequins (including two cast from life) were also commissioned to reflect the range of people represented in the exhibition.
With more than 1.3bn disabled people living in the world they have long been ignored by the fashion industry yet greater visibility of disabled people in fashion is essential if attitudes are to be changed. It was surely a sign of progress when last summer Aaron Philip became the first Black, trans, disabled model to sign for a major modelling agency.
Despite all but one of the 10 most booked models for New York’s Autumn 2019 Fashion Week being Black, Asian or Ethnic Minority, the corresponding European shows lag when it comes to racial diversity. The appointment of Edward Enninful as Vogue’s first Black editor in 2017 was a landmark, Enninful being an outspoken advocate for diversity in fashion.
When in 1984 Jean Paul Gaultier put his male models in skirts on the catwalk, several fashion editors reportedly walked out. In contrast, and even with fashion brands such as Gypsy Sport, Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY and Art School putting gender non-conforming models at their forefront of their shows this Spring, the LGBTQIA+ community continues to ask for more meaningful representation in fashion of trans, non-binary, gender fluid and queer identities.
The fashion world is slowly embracing a more diverse range of female shapes and sizes, with Ashley Graham becoming the first curve model to feature on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid models in 2017. Of the 50 curve models to feature in the Autumn 2019 shows, only 6 were for European brands – and that’s in spite of the fact that the average British woman wears a size 16. Additionally, conversations about body positivity stubbornly focus on women only.
And finally, onto age… even though the world’s fastest growing consumer group is aged over 60, they remain unrepresented on the catwalk. Style blogs and social media influencers such as Advanced Style and Maye Musk are shifting attitudes to ageless style, whilst the signing of Iris Apfel at the age of 97 to IMG Models shows there’s hope for us all!
Credits:
Advanced Style (2012) by Ari Seth Cohen, Alamy stock photos, ‘At the National Museum of Scotland Body Beautiful – Diversity on the Catwalk’ by Phyllis Stephen The Edinburgh Reporter 23 May 2019, The Lady 27 April 2018 and, National Museum of Scotland Chambers Street June 2019.
