Show Me The Colour

Photos courtesy of Taye Hansberry

My diversity radar is always on and in full effect, and fashion week was no different. One of the first things I notice on the runway is that little spot of color. You see race when you look at models especially when there's only a couple of brown faces there. This can be incredibly disheartening. As a little girl I loved seeing Naomi, Tyra, Beverly Peele, and Veronica Webb strut the catwalk. They inspired me. For the latest generation of future fashionistas and model lovers, it's slim pickings. It seems like the beautiful caramel, honey, and chocolate amazons that I love to see are so few and far between.

Maybe I'm crazy. I've heard that over the past few seasons, designers are incorporating more black, Asian, and other ethnicities into their shows. Just to see if this is actually true, I took a tally of the minority models during New York Fashion Week. I attempted to count each and every show give or take a couple. It has literally taken me days to go through them. Especially after Thursday's Essence Lunchtime Debates on Twitter, I needed to see an accurate runway race report card.

Out of the 70 something shows or presentations I counted, here's what stood out:

5 had absolutely no black models- this includes Kanye favorite MM6 by Margiela and Vivienne Tam. The latter did have Asian models in 10 of the 39 looks on the runway.

1 black model for Cynthia Rowley, Theyskens' Theory, Sass & Bide, and Marchesa just to name a few.

1 Asian, 1 Black for Jill Stuart, and I actually like her stuff.

The majority of shows had 4 to 6 minority models walking.

Kudos to Jeremy Scott and Mara Hoffman for by far the most diverse shows ever. There were so many colorful models on the runway that I couldn't keep count.

Keep in mind, my stats are based solely on me looking at photos from the shows with the exception of the ones I actually attended. It was extremely difficult to count the models who appeared to be ethnically ambiguous. I took a count of the total number of looks that came down the runway, the number of ethnic models, and the number of looks on hese models. I tried to cross reference and all that other exact scientific research stuff, but I'm not a professional race counter. With all of that said, it's important to notice the designers that stayed true to their consumer demographic and own personal ethnic background. African American designer Tracy Reese represented for the home team with black models wearing 17 of the 43 looks that came down the runway. This is all a step in the right direction, but we still have a ways to go. Do these numbers accurately reflect the population? Is this show of color appropriate for the global audience? Will the stats look drastically different after fashion weeks in London, Paris and Milan? The jury's still out, but we've got to remain optimistic and push for a more colorful fashion future.