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Luxury fashion remains an exclusive club, with leadership positions often held by close-knit circles. Despite industry-wide efforts at diversity and inclusion, the sector continues to struggle with gender and racial diversity in top creative roles. Many luxury brands still operate within networks that prioritize traditional backgrounds, making it difficult for new and diverse talent to break through.
“I think this is where people’s unconscious biases really play a role, because whether we perceive something as good or bad design is heavily influenced by who is communicating that it’s good or bad design,” said Robert Williams, luxury editor at BoF.
In this week’s episode of The Debrief, BoF Senior Correspondent Sheena Butler-Young speaks with Williams to discuss the structural barriers that prevent women and minorities from ascending to these coveted positions. We explore why the industry’s patriarchal business model perpetuates these challenges, the influence of consumer expectations that drive change, and how mass-market brands like Uniqlo are starting to change the narrative by appointing creative directors with unconventional backgrounds.
Key Insights
The role of the creative director in luxury fashion has traditionally been defined by a single authoritative voice dictating trends and taste, and imposing what is deemed “right” or “wrong” in design. Williams explains that this model, which elevates the creative director as the gatekeeper of style, makes it difficult for anyone who doesn’t fit the traditional mold of authority in fashion to rise to the top. “A creative director defined in a very traditional sense has a lot to do with imposing this authority from on high, and while not everyone runs a brand that way anymore, that tradition makes it difficult for anyone to rise who doesn’t fit the criteria of someone who’s used to being seen as an authority and powerful figure.” Women in positions of creative leadership face a unique challenge of having to prove their creative vision with commercial success. “Women have probably had to back up their creative contributions with commercial results,” Williams said. “When you look at women at the top of luxury, you see them as women who know how to say something on the runway, or say something with their brand, but they also need to back that up with products that women want to buy and wear.” This dual expectation puts additional pressure on female creative directors that may not be the case for their male counterparts. Luxury fashion remains a very closed industry, with hiring and promotions often happening within exclusive networks that favor familiar faces and traditional backgrounds. “A lot of luxury companies still operate within very exclusive networks, making it hard for new and diverse talent to get in,” Williams noted. “It’s a very network- and relationship-driven industry, so it’s very hard to enforce diversity. If you don’t have a really diverse group around the people in positions of power, it becomes less and less likely that you’re going to find interesting talent — someone who wants to get in somehow on the studio side of things.”
Additional resources
Luxury fashion’s designer diversity problem remains: Despite big-name hires like Chanel’s Virginie Viard and Louis Vuitton’s Pharrell Williams, gender equality and racial diversity in top creative roles remain urgent issues. Do mass brands need creative directors? This week, Uniqlo appointed Clare Waight Keller as its mainline creative director, Stefano Pilati signed a collection deal with Inditex’s flagship Zara, and Zac Posen hosted a glitzy party with Old Navy at New York Fashion Week. The jury is still out on whether hiring high-fashion designers improves retail performance.
