The SS17 Runway Diversity Report

[E]very season, The Fashion Spot, publishes a report on runway diversity, checking fashion on its historic lack of representation in shows and campaigns. According to this season’s figures, SS17 was the most diverse season ever, though that standard has not been set particularly high.

According to the report across cities diversity increased to 25.4%, up from 24.75% with shows from Kanye West (97%), Kimora Lee Simmons (82%), Brandon Maxwell (69%) and Ashish (75%) casting the most models of colour.

Age diversity was also on the up, with at least one model over 50 walking in all cities except Paris. 72 year old Lauren Hutton closed Bottega Veneta alongside Gigi Hadid in Milan.

Racial diversity increased in all cities except New York, which still had the “best” percentage of diversity despite falling to 30.3% from 31.6%. New York also featured all of this season’s 16 plus size models and featured eight out of ten of this season’s transgender models.

There are still giant strides to be made, though. Shows from Junya Watanabe and The Row were reported as showing 0% diversity on The Fashion Spot despite new guidelines put in place by the CFDA. Designers falling the wrong side of these guidelines should surely take note of other designers moving in the right direction.