Excerpt: Fashion x Intersectional Feminism in Elle Canada May 2014

Above: Prada’s Spring 2014 collection was lauded as being especially feminist. Designer and namesake Miuccia Prada identifies as a feminist.

On the eve of New York Fashion Week spring/summer 2014, models Iman, Naomi Campbell and former model agent Bethann Hardison-under the banner of the Diversity Coalition-launched an anti-racism campaign, naming 16 womenswear fashion houses that had used one or no models of colour the previous season. The percentage of black models at New York Fashion Week increased from 6 percent during the fall/winter 2013 to 8 percent in spring/summer 2014.

Two percent. That’s where the self-congratulatory parade [of fashion's commitment to feminism] stops. The picture gets murkier when you add the fact that six of the 16 fashion houses cited by the Diversity Coalition are helmed by women: Victoria Beckham, Donna Karan, Monique Lhullier, Philosophy, The Row and Rodarte. Feminism should be about raising all women up–if female designers resist that spirit, where does that leave us?

- from “The New Girl Power” by Laura deCarufel in Elle Canada May 2014