Diversity In The Fashion Industry: Women Of Color Are Dominating September 2015 Issues

Grammy Award R&B/Pop singer Beyoncé made history by being the first solo BLACK woman to cover Anna Wintour‘s Vogue September issue (see it here).

The September issue is the most important and biggest issue of the year for fashion publications. Candy Pratts Prince once said, “September is the January in fashion.” September’s fall fashion issues holds a lot of weight and most luxury houses spend the most amount of advertising dollars in this particular issue.

Diversity has been a problem in the fashion industry for decades. There are less women of color on the runways and in ad campaigns than white women. Just like designers, fashion publications need to include more women of color on their covers, especially their September issues. If you have the beauty, personality, body and talents, you should have the opportunity to do the job in the fashion industry, versus not being giving the opportunity to do the job because you’re a woman of color or a Black model.

Over the past years, most magazines chose a White woman for its covers. It was very rare to see a model of color on a September issue. However, things seemed to change a bit this year and now there are more models of color on September issue.

In fact, in 2015, models of color are dominating the September issues of fashion publications. I am very proud to see that some fashion magazines are now putting models of color on their September issues because those models and celebs deserves the same fair shot and opportunities as their White counterparts.

Take a look at 14 people of color on the cover of September issues.

Grammy Award winning music artist, fashion designer, and creative director Pharrell Williams covers the September 2015 issue of Harper’s Bazaar Man Korea (see it here).

Ciara covers the September 2015 issue of Shape magazine (see it here).