The Fall-Winter 2013 shows have just finished up in New York. This season saw 151 shows and live presentations during fashion week's eight days — making it the biggest and busiest NYFW we've ever covered. But it wasn't very racially diverse.
This season, 151 New York designers' shows were covered by Style.com. Those shows presented 4479 individual women's wear "looks" to buyers and press, representing 4479 opportunities for a model to walk the runway or pose in a presentation. 3706 of those looks, or 82.7%, were this season shown on White models. Asian models nabbed 409, or 9.1% of all the runway looks. Black models were hired for 270, or 6%. Non-white Latina models had 90 looks, or 2%. Models of other races wore 7, or 0.2% of all looks.
Fourteen companies — Araks, Assembly, Belstaff, Calvin Klein, Elizabeth & James, Gregory Parkinson, Holmes & Yang, J Brand, Jenni Kayne, Juicy Couture, Louise Goldin, Lyn Devon, Threeasfour, and Whit — had no models of color at all. The brands Araks, Calvin Klein, Elizabeth & James, and Louise Goldin didn't hire any non-White models last season, either. That means this season, around 9% of all NYFW shows had all-White casts. That's up slightly from last season, when only 6% of shows had only White models. For comparison, in 2007, one-third of NYFW shows were all-White.
Designers that had more racial diversity included 3.1 Phillip Lim, Anna Sui, Badgley Mischka, Costello Tagliapietra, Diane von Furstenberg, J. Crew, Jason Wu, Jeremy Scott, Jonathan Simkhai, Mara Hoffman, Naeem Khan, Nicole Miller, Rebecca Taylor, Suno, Tracy Reese, Yeohlee, and Zac Posen.
