The Diversity gap between GFW and the Industry’s Fashion Weeks
Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) is undeniably the future of creative design talent in the UK. Now celebrating its 25th year, GFW showcases graduate collections from over 40 universities in the UK and beyond, with all the students bringing their unique styles to the catwalk. Unfortunately, it seems that the fashion industry has yet to grasp this diverse future.
Despite their academic success and the exposure gained at shows such as GFW, a significant proportion of graduates will struggle to work in creative positions or even stay in the fashion industry full stop. While 84% of UK fashion graduates were in employment six months after graduating in 2014, at least 71% of these graduates are in jobs outside of art and design. One reason for this drainage of talent could be the high upfront costs and challenges in evaluating market demand for their products. For example, it can cost £10,000 to make a fashion MA collection (not including the additional £10,000 to complete the course) and up to $3million (£2.08m) to get a ready-to-wear collection truly off the ground. It is no surprise then that fashion is dominated by members of privileged families, with the bank account to afford a string of unpaid internships and initial start-up costs.
However, this does not explain the worrying gender imbalance in fashion. In the last ten years, 67% of the Graduate Fashion Week Gold Award winners were female, with many going on to build lucrative careers in the industry, but a similar success story is not reflected in the wider industry. Fashion houses built by and for women are no longer run by women. Less than 30% of the brands/fashion houses showcasing at Paris Fashion Week A/W16, had a female creative director. In the UK fashion and textile industry, only 36% of the top positions were held by women in 2009, even though they represented the majority of the workforce. Seven years later, while women continue to enter the workforce, they are still not rising proportionately to the top.
I also have too many spare fingers after counting the number of non-white female designers showcasing at major fashion weeks. In the US, black female designers account for approximately 4 of the CFDA’s 470 members, with only two of these members holding shows at New York Fashion Week A/W 2016. In the UK, the figures are much worse, with hardly any black designers presenting at London Fashion Week A/W 2016.
At See Fashion, we want to bridge fashion’s diversity gap. We are an online platform that helps designers validate, manufacture and wholesale their best designs. Our aim is to create a new era of fashion where we give designers the tools to grow and consumers the power to set the trends. This democratic approach will hopefully open the doors for young entrepreneurs to climb the fashion ladder.
Designers submit their fashion ideas on our platform, which are then validated by a community of stylists and style seekers through pre-orders. If the designer reaches their minimum order quantity, See Fashion will support or manage the manufacture and distribution of their orders. Finally we use data from our users to push designers to top fashion retailers.
We are currently running the See Fashion Design Challenge to help designers realise their fashion ideas! We will contribute £2000 towards the production of their designs by our ethical manufacturers.
As COO of See Fashion, I want to encourage and inspire young women of all ethnicities and cultures to start their own businesses. I want to leverage the incredible opportunities and networks I have built over the years in order to shape a new diverse future in fashion.
For more information about See Fashion please visit our website or follow us on instagram, facebook or twitter.
