Where Are Black People in the Fashion Industry?

A few weeks ago, I attended a virtual discussion about inclusion and diversity in the design community. A white male founder of a design agency uncomfortably asked what he could do better about hiring more black people. I told him to consider the lens that he looks at the portfolios of black people. Is he assuming that a black person can’t connect with his company’s aesthetic? Is he looking at potential? A good designer can work in all sorts of styles. Later, I had so many other things that I wanted to say to him.

Not the right vision. Culture fit. Not what we’re looking for. Those were vague phrases that I heard frequently from white hiring managers. Phrases delivered with the same gravity that an oncologist would use. I worked full-time for wonderfully diverse tiny organizations. They were small names that supported plenty of huge brands. In those jobs, my hiring managers were women of color who had leadership positions. But I also worked in plenty of freelance positions throughout the industry that gave me a great scope of the issue of race in the industry. 

Not the Right Vision

In the fashion industry, I experienced hiring managers viewing my portfolio through a lens of racism. Those managers would tell me that the project that I spent hours to create specifically for that interview was not “the right fit.” Once a talent scout told me that she thought that my hand-stitched, draped couture dress was actually a cheap smocked dress that you can get for $20.  She didn’t believe me when I told her that she was mistaken. She said that I will never get the design job that I wanted with something cheap like that in my portfolio. According to her my designs needed to be more minimalist. I toned down my voice, which was psychologically damaging to me. Are you perceiving the work of candidates through a lens of stereotyping? Do you see black people or POC of having poor design skills? Maybe it’s too colorful or too ornate for your tastes. That doesn’t mean something is “bad.” The design world reveres Marc Jacobs and the Memphis Group. Notice that when they create something out of the norm then that creation is considered groundbreaking. That is white male privilege in action. 

Work Ethic

The Fashion Industry is notorious for a culture of late nights and hard work. Once, I took a freelance gig that was temp to perm. I worked constantly from 9 am to 10 pm, with few lunch breaks and sometimes I left at 1 am. I did that for 10 months, all the while the managing Senior Designer told me that I wasn’t a “good enough” designer to hire full-time. My work ethic was often in question. In the Black Community this is known as the “Black Tax”; “you have to work twice as hard to get half as much.” I was never fast enough and my ideas never good enough. Yet, in this same position, I experienced hearing a white coworker loudly complain that she had to design woven garments in her new promotion. She said that her “brain didn’t work that way.” Her manager worked closely with her to teach her things that she should have learned in her college program. That coworker was full-time. My career up to that point had included designing woven and knit garments and I was essentially teaching myself how to design sweaters on the job. I was never given that kind of gentle mentorship from my manager.

Wrong Aesthetic

When people talk about the Fashion Industry, no one really discusses the mass-market department store side of the industry. It’s a bigger moneymaker than the couture dresses shown on the pages of Vogue. But not as well known as the familiar mall brands, which I set out to work for when I started my fashion career. I aimed for those brands and fell extremely short into the hundreds of no-name brands that fill department stores. These companies were much more diverse than the mall brands. But it also felt like I was pushed into a ghetto. Thinking that after a few years with my foot in the door, I could move on to designing something that I liked; I took what I could get. The industry doesn’t work like that. Career movement is often among brands that create similar products. It took years for someone to finally confirm to me that I was stuck in the fashion industry ghetto. It was the unfamiliar brand names on my resume and the corresponding garments I had to design that kept me there. My personal work did not vibe with my professional work, which is what most hiring managers wanted to see anyway. Hiring managers could not see my potential.

Are you overlooking a candidate that has been pushed into positions that don’t represent them? Small projects for candidates are a good equalizer in this instance. Please respect your candidate’s intellectual property rights to their projects.

No Pipeline

I mentioned in the previous paragraph that moving within the fashion industry often means moving within brands that are similar. Often the designers, buyers, merchants, and other corporate office workers use connections from past positions to continue within the same group of coworkers. This makes it hard to crack the diversity nut. New mid-level talent isn’t being added to this incestuous group of workers. The only way in is from the assistant or intern level. A level that depends on someone at a higher level to mentor or socialize with that person to start their career. Mentors tend to foster people who remind them of themselves. So yeah, that means race becomes a factor. I experienced not being mentored in my internship. So did other POC I know. Needless to say, we didn’t get hired into those companies. Many of our white classmates did though.

Are you hiring mid-level talent that is diverse? That might shake up your organization in a beneficial way. Diversity can mean diverse opinions that keep your output fresh. Do you have a  formal mentoring program? Or do individual workers choose their favorite workers? Are mentees chosen by how they socialize with coworkers rather than their actual work performance? Is your company a club or a place of work?

Culture Fit

Companies today pride themselves on their “culture.” This has become coded racism and sexism in many organizations. It’s understandable that companies want teams that can easily work together and relate to each other. I know how it feels to work with people in which I did not share interests with vs. people who do. When I worked as a contractor I was elated to meet people who shared my interests, often in design offices that were full of white hipster types. Walls came up when I tried to relate with those coworkers about music and movies. My taste is pretty indie, yet it was clear that they assumed that I only listened to Rihanna or Beyonce by the way they turned the conversation toward those artists. Maybe they were trying to make me feel comfortable by talking about things that they assume that I like. But it showed me how much I was seen as a generic black person and not as an individual. White people get to be individuals. Why can’t POC? (I like both Rihanna and Beyonce, but I also really like indie music.)

Too Aggressive

Aggression is what you need in your arsenal in the Fashion Industry. It also is important in male-dominated design fields. People who get promoted need to be aggressive in putting themselves in the right projects and positions. This disadvantages a lot of women (including black women) who have been socialized to be passive. And it really disadvantages black women who are generally stereotyped as “angry” or “hostile.” It is a catch-22 for a black woman to advocate for herself in a team or office. In my experience, creative people at large aren’t particularly aggressive people. That said, does a design office have to have a pathway to promotion similar to a Wall Street brokerage firm? Yet, my experience has been that the squeaky wheels get their oil. You might be missing out on talent because you’re expecting someone to speak up who all of their life has been told to shut up. 

All those years in the industry, I felt like my black life didn’t matter. No one put a knee on my neck, but I experienced racism that ensured that my career stayed in it’s designated place. Design is in our everyday life and frames our culture. Not including black talent in design offices perpetuates the belief at large that black people are not relevant in our society. And irrelevant people get knees on their necks.