Dolce & Gabbana’s pizza with chopsticks, Prada’s blackface monkeys: how fashion woke up to its diversity problem in 2019
Fashion’s reckoning over the lack of diversity has reached a tipping point, it seems. This year alone, top-tier fashion houses including Prada, Gucci, Chanel and Burberry have all made massive headway in moving their diversity and inclusion agendas forward.
And rightly so, considering recent luxury headlines. A growing number of brands have found themselves in the hot seat following unfortunate racial or cultural missteps.
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From Dolce & Gabbana’s tone-deaf advert featuring a model eating pizza with chopsticks to Prada’s blackface monkeys, these blunders have led to widespread criticism, battered reputations and significant loss in wallet share.
“It’s interesting – we can speculate whether they [luxury brands] would do this if something hadn’t happened, but here we are,” says Kimberly Jenkins, a lecturer in fashion and race at New York’s Parsons School of Design.
It clearly pays to be diverse. A 2018 Accenture study revealed that companies who reported the highest levels of racial diversity brought in 15 times the sales revenue than those who represented the lowest levels of racial diversity. Meanwhile, a Columbia Business School study focused on expatriate creative directors found that international and intercultural exposure helps fashion businesses as the uniqueness in their cultural experiences brings positive effects to the creative process.
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“Miseducation within companies when it comes to iconography, language, people of colour and how they’re represented have led to big brands making major mistakes, so, this is pointing to progress,” Jenkins explains. “Progress is good when we see it reaching the luxury level.”
And while this slew of diversified hires may help mitigate outward-facing slip-ups, fashion still has a coast full of cliffs to climb.
The imbalance in luxury fashion’s corporate culture is prevalent, represented by a lacking of diversity at the highest levels of leadership. Glaringly white, under-represented and marginalised cohorts struggle to access luxury’s higher ranks.
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“Many of these luxury brands don’t have a problem employing people of colour on the retail level,” Jenkins says, “but it’s so important to have them in these power-broking roles so that those on the lower levels of the chain can see themselves in the executive strata of the company.”
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Fortunately, luxury houses across the globe are increasingly approaching recruitment with a diversity lens.
“At Chanel, diversity and inclusion has been an area of dedicated focus led by our head of global people communication and people engagement. Through our talent management processes, we assess and address demographic underrepresentation,” a spokesperson from the French brand said.
Over at Gucci, a statement from the Italian brand revealed upcoming plans: “[Renée] Tirado’s strategy will progressively impact our current recruitment approaches as well as our ways to review and promote talents internally.”
On a more established front, French conglomerate LVMH encourages diversity of profiles and backgrounds in their hiring process, as outlined in the group’s recruitment code of conduct.
But hiring under a diversity pretence has not come without criticism.
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“You have two camps of people. There are those who think forcing and inserting diversity into a company that’s primarily homogeneous seems a little inauthentic and inorganic and could be doomed to fail structurally,” Jenkins explains. “And then there are others who say; this is great, this is progress, and it’s an opportunity for minority people to be able to work within an organisation that is highly sought after and aspirational.”
The lack of diverse talent is only part of the problem. Fashion houses have to go beyond diversity and champion inclusion, two terms that are often misunderstood and used interchangeably. If “diversity” gives a minority individual a seat at the fashion table, then “inclusion” ensures that they feel valued enough to speak up.
LVMH has understood that this requires a mindset change internally and its hiring of Hayden Majajas as its global diversity and inclusion head is proof. “[Majajas] will lead a training programme around unconscious bias and inclusive leadership for all employees in key positions,” Chantal Gaemperle, LVMH’s group executive vice-president of human resources and synergies, says. “This includes raising awareness of the challenges that may arise when working across cultures and providing appropriate tools for talents to bridge those differences.”
In March 2019, the company gathered 300 stakeholders to strengthen the group’s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Similarly, Jenkins assisted Gucci with diversity education in the spring, offering academic knowledge, historical context to images and iconography, and illuminations to why cultural diversity and education matters.
What’s most crucial in today’s universal fashion world is the ability to speak to all consumers. With growing luxury markets in Asia, it is key for these cultures to be reflected in corporate talent pools.
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“For LVMH, people make the difference and, therefore, our people are at the core of our D&I (diversity and inclusion) strategies,” Gaemperle says. “We have increased the number of locals in key positions by 12 per cent over the past three years.”
Most notably, the group appointed its first Asian CEO, Charles Leung, to lead jewellery brand Fred in 2018. Gaemperle adds: “Charles’s appointment was not just a first for LVMH but for the European luxury industry, and it signals a trend for leadership to be representative of diverse talent.”
Over the years, there has been a seismic shift in fashion. As diversity and inclusion become a non-negotiable way of being, economic competitiveness and cultural relevance will equally become interdependent. Luxury houses have to look beyond tokenism and privilege, and necessitate changes to existing systems and ways of thinking. As we near 2020, it’s no longer a race for awareness, it’s a race for action.
Steps forward
February 2019: Prada announces that two influential African-American cultural figures, artist Theaster Gates and director Ava DuVernay, would lead a new advisory council that will “elevate voices of colour”.
February 2019: Burberry revealed plans to establish employee councils focused on diversity and inclusion.
February 2019: Richemont appoints Marina Corti as group diversity and inclusion director, to support an inclusive work environment, and to define a global framework and strategic initiatives that contribute to a caring and respectful work environment.
May 2019: LVMH introduces newly arrived head of diversity and inclusion, Hayden Majajas, who will lead a training programme around unconscious bias and inclusive leadership for all employees in key positions.
July 2019: Chanel bolsters its diversity values by appointing Fiona Pargeter in a newly created role of global head of diversity and inclusion.
July 2019: Gucci hires Renée Tiradoto to lead its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts globally, as part of the company’s continued mission for a positive corporate culture and long-term diversity and inclusion plan.
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It took some epic fails – Dolce & Gabbana’s infamous pizza with chopsticks ad, Prada’s blackface monkeys – for the fashion industry to finally face up to its diversity problem, but now the race towards inclusion is officially on