New York Fashion Week Shows Diversity
While the streets of Manhattan were filled with street style legends poised to enter New York Fashion Week’s exclusive fashion shows, the runways were looking a bit different this year. According to the New York Times, there was a shift this year to incorporate more diverse models into the Feb. 11-18 affair. While the Times’ reporter Ruth La Ferla said diverse models were expected at shows such as those of Puma x Fenty by Rihanna, Hood by Air, Telfar and Gypsy Sport, models of varying skin tones also graced the runways of the Rosie Assoulin, Sophie Theallet and Tory Burch shows. There is no official tally yet on the number of racially diverse models featured in the shows. The New York Times says that “show-by-show estimates range in number from four or five at Anna Sui to 25 at Zac Posen and Xuly.Bët.” The changes follow a recent string of advertisements for spring collections by such companies as Kate Spade, Chanel and Valentino, all of which presented more ethnically varied models. Although there are still changes to be made in the industry, former model and agent Bethann Hardison said it best when she told the Times, “You have to keep after it, poking away.”
SI’s Swimsuit Issue Makes History
For the first time in 52 years, Sports Illustrated launched three covers of their infamous Swimsuit Issue, but what made headlines was not the tri-cover issue, but the magazine’s cover girls. One cover featured model Hailey Clauson, while the other two featured size-16 model Ashley Graham and UFC fighter Ronda Rousey. The move comes in an attempt to portray three different kinds of beauty on the cover of the magazine. Sports Illustrated Assistant Managing Editor MJ Day explained to CNN the reasoning for choosing each woman, describing Graham’s confidence as “contagious,” while boasting Clauson as a “smart and “cool girl” and Rousey as “the perfect combination of beauty, brains, brawn and humility.” Day perfectly summed up their presence on the magazine’s cover in this way: “All three women are beautiful, sexy and strong. Beauty is not cookie cutter. Beauty is not ‘one size fits all.’”
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