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The Diversity Stats Are In for Fashion Month

By Adele Chapin
H&M's runway show
H&M's runway show
Photo: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images

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The Fashion Spot released its runway diversity report today for the fall 2016 season, spanning four cities — New York, London, Paris, and Milan — 312 shows, and 8,727 model castings.

Overall there was a very small improvement from last season, but much more work to be done. The stats from the four cities combined show that 75.25 percent of the models cast were white, and 24.75 percent were models of color.

For the spring 2016 shows in September, models on the runway were 77.6 percent white. And for the previous season, fall 2015, models on the runway were 80 percent white.

New York was the most diverse city, with shows like Yeezy Season 3, Zac Posen, and Chromat leading the way.

Paris was a distant second, as plenty of casting directors at shows there really missed the mark. Comme des Garçons only cast white models for the second season in a row; Vetements designer Demna Gvasalia cast almost entirely white models for his debut show for Balenciaga.

"On this topic, Vetements and Balenciaga need to be called out and corrected," Jason Campbell wrote in an op-ed for the Business of Fashion.

Casting director James Scully did just that on Instagram, writing in a post: "So if you're the designer the whole world is looking to right now how, great that your message is one of exclusion which is never in fashion. It must feel like a slap to all if the people of color who line up to buy your clothes that your message to them you don't see them in your world. Two strikes out. And the award for most anticipated and biggest dissappointment at once goes to...... Demma Gvasalia "

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