How the Fashion Industry Needs to Change | Good Morning Vogue

[Music] hey it's paloma and welcome back to good morning vogue and the end of new york fashion week for our final segment we'll be talking to an assortment of thought leaders on their perspective around the intersection of fashion and activism but first let's recap earlier in the week he spoke to a bunch of amazing stylists designers and editors around where they think the industry should go i think for years all of us who work in the fashion industry have been talking about how bloated and old-fashioned frankly the whole system of attending the shows and the amount of people that would travel from city to city spending you know a huge amount of money it was this extraordinary spectacle which at the same time generated a huge amount of impressions and a an enormous amount of interest in and following in fashion but as a as a way to run a business it simply wasn't working i think the main thing about our industry that needs to change is the speed of it we create too many collections a year we create too many things i think ultimately our customer has started to view what we create as as almost disposable it's like a mixture between like autopilot and an assembly line so much of what the fashion industry has been missing the plot on is reality and actual inclusion at the start of 2020 it was like the crack in the glass with the pause we felt where the industry was just sort of like under like overrunning itself by the middle of the year when george floyd was murdered it allowed us to look at ourselves in the mirror to sort of recognize the racial inequalities that still exist you know in america and the world abroad and us as a fashion industry what do we do you know we project images we almost give perceived value and then when we look at ourselves we look at how imbalanced maybe that representation is there is a real reckoning taking place in america right now in an attempt to confront years of systemic racism in this country and of course this impacts the fashion world as well as obviously the world at large we as a fashion industry have never really tackled the subject of race um now it's a conversation that's happening which i love that is happening more and more um i think now we're even looking beneath the surface and we're starting to look at systemic racism and all of the challenges that cause and we're not just looking at what it is but we're looking at why it is you have to face the world today if if you are in fashion and you just do clothes i feel that you do half of your job our job is about witnessing our time delivering an idea of beauty we need to be more inclusive it's impossible not to do it i think now more than ever people's consumption is going to want to match their value system and i think for me personally and i know all of my customers in my community they're very into voting with their money you know and when when someone spends money on your brand or when someone spends money at all that's a that's a power transaction you know even when you like something on instagram that's a power transaction so you need to spend your time and your resources on the things that you want to see do well and succeed what's been incredible and positive about this experience that everybody has been going through is that it has been a time for reflection and for us all to think about what went wrong why it went wrong and what we can do differently so after the pandemic first hit i think everybody's reaction within the american fashion community and and certainly at vogue and the cfda was what can we do to help we realized that we could take the fashion fund and repurpose it as an initiative called a common thread and raise money to help those that were most in need whether it was designers or small businesses like small boutiques or even factories stylists anyone that was part of our community that was really struggling during the past few months one of the most inspiring things i've seen is how designers particularly the designers that i work with which are mostly black or latino designers how they have taken this moment and leveraged it like not i mean i'm talking about from the pandemic even in the most dire situation that they figured out a way to be optimistic and to create in a situation that that felt pretty hopeless i think that the most inspiring thing that i've seen during this moment i think has been less of an emphasis on selling product or making product or just things and more of an emphasis on community on quality on feeling an emotion which is the reason that we all probably got into fashion tom ford calls this period a hibernation i think that anybody who can say fashion is going to be this in six months or even in a year they're lying nobody knows i think we're in a moment where people are going to try a lot of different things i'm essentially just trying to lead by example because i know that this industry is a great one you know i know that there's a changing of the guard we've been past the baton it's up to us to sort of make the change that we want to see i just want to see like a complete rethinking of what it means to be diverse which in my mind is just accepting the multitudes of existence like every kind of person should see themselves in fashion none of us really know what fashion is going to be in the next two to three years how the industry's going to look but i do believe that it has been decentralized i don't think it will ever go back to business as usual for 2021 i think it's going to take a little while for us to get there and i think as we start to get out of the weeds even when i talk about it i feel like a cellular shift in myself we will have all emerged a little bit differently and i think i'm excited to see like the new colors that people will have the new stripes i get really mad when i read the articles about fashion being over and nobody needs it we all need fashion we all need clothes to put on our backs and to express ourselves and i think out of this is going to come an even deeper desire for fashion and for the best of fashion and it's the mundane and the knock-offs and the cheap stuff that is going to fall by the wayside and it's going to be a celebration of what is really the best of what we do after the the pandemic of 1918 and after world war one what did we have we had the roaring twenties for our second story this week we went to the brooklyn home of prms founder kirby jean raymond where we spoke of independence and creativity and fashion [Music] this is my last interview i would say for for a while just because i don't feel like i have anything else to offer in the terms of like recapping my story at this point i just feel like publications and people who interview me tend to kind of like look for a specific narrative in the things that i say instead of like trying to like really capture who i'm presenting myself to be you know they have a tendency to like make me sound mean or like you know take pictures of me that make me look angry so i'm just going to take the beyonce approach your friends in new york is an ecosystem it aims to solve a lot of problems for designers creatives people who work in and around our industry and takes a lot of inclusive approaches to re-establish the future of fashion this is not about to be a version of cfda incubator and this is not about to be a version of an accelerator from like silicon valley or anything like that this is not that at all this is more def jam in the mid 90s or rockefeller in the early 2000s than it is a charitable approach to anything it's definitely a new way of doing things a new way of thinking it's an audacious way of thinking i hope that this becomes the new way of doing things where designers do get a fair shake and that we're just not creating free content for publications and media platforms with nothing in return i want to get it right and i want to create a sustainable system where new brands held by people that look like us can actually get a shot at being sustainable this is an atom bomb you know like this is like no distractions plus a pandemic that's making us really value life in a different way we've had a lot more time with our own thoughts but also with people that we love we didn't see george floyd get murdered and then be able to go back to work the next day we had to sit with that thought we had to sit with that aggression and then you hear elijah mclean and you hear tony mcdade and you hear brianna taylor and then you go back and you revisit sandra bland and trayvon and all of these and ahmad arbury and all of these different things that were happening right under our nose and the rage starts to build up it was hard for me to ignore then it was hard for me to ignore now so it was like i had as much as i wanted to just be the black yoshi yamamoto and not have my race show up in my work i can't because it was like the world outside of milk studios the spring studios wherever i was showing my show was still treating me like the what the i am which is a black man from brooklyn who for the most part people don't respect until they learn what i do what i love most about this moment is that everybody's paying attention it's hard to ignore now what's going on right like our lives have unilaterally been put on break and we have to open our eyes we have to look now what we have to do now as creatives is think about how many systems we've been buying into and how many of them we can successfully destroy there's so many different like nuanced conversations that happen around capitalism and if you look at just the fashion industry alone like the fashion industry embodies everything wrong with capitalism is that you have this one percent that controls most of the wealth most of the resources most of the means of production the leadership roles etc and fashion embodies that they've done what they've done they've built what they've built and they have the right to maintain that but we don't need that anymore we're stuck in this rut of we have to do things the old way and the old way does it work i just want you to think what systems are you buying into what are you innovating versus what are you emulating fashion's role right now is to observe and come up with solutions for problems and we [Music] control image but more importantly we control self-esteem and i think that's where we can really find our way as an industry is to really think about this new world this post-covert understanding of empathy this post-george floyd world of understanding of empathy and seeing where we fit in to continue to build off those morals that we're collectively and consciously coming into i don't want all of us to always be dependent on some prize or some award or something like that to kind of like level the playing field with us we don't need that we just and no one no one person is gonna fix it we just gotta we just gotta buy out of that system if the stores are discounting your and not giving you a fair shake and giving you an opportunity to incubate and and and mature your brand don't go we will be releasing our campaign in a few weeks and we found a way to include the community so we did an open studio and all of we had like all of our fans right in and like just tell us why they wanted to be part of our open studio and what we're going to do is just use our fans as a subject for our campaign and we're repacing them all around the world the pmr show will be part of other your friends in new york initiative so we want to make sure all of those things can happen succinctly i think what we do is always is always unpredictable but always on time over the last five months the social justice uprising has made very clear that young people are voting with their wallets in the third segment this week we'll be speaking to a number of people who skillfully use fashion as a platform for activism let's talk to hannah stoddemeyer and ali richmond of fashion for all celine simon of slow factory and author kimberly drew about why their work is more impactful now than ever fashion activism is a term i coined early as i started slow factory it was the idea that fashion can be the vehicle for change fashion creates meaning and meaning creates culture if the public is aware of something it can move policies forward slow factory is a not-for-profit working at the intersection of human rights and climate justice we are upstate in nayak we decided to move in nature because we are always talking about bridging the gap between urban and rural areas we work with the public as a public service in open education in designing new systems equity at the heart of our strategies and our work with brands in trying to create these intersectional way of thinking from climate to human rights to fashion to style to personal expression all these things are connected and they drive change i was always a kid who was reading the magazines and really enthused in thinking about modes of presentation through fashion but around six years ago i concretely became a part of the industry of fashion which has been quite an interesting ride i think today i've been able to pair my own interests as an activist and a critical thinker trying to push brands as they're thinking about working more inclusively thinking more future forward thinking more sustainably on many different levels there is something that's so powerful in the confidence around self that makes fashion so powerful like i think all the time i can do anything if i like how i look you know like i could start a movement if i like how i look if i feel like my truest self i'll speak more articulately more powerfully and so i think that the ability to adorn everyone of all walks of life of all roles i think is a really critical role that fashion plays in 2016 i staged a black lives matter protest to speak out against the racial injustices happening and the unlawful killings of unarmed black men and women the very next day we brainstormed and we created fashion for all foundation we would have these conversations and what i said to han i said listen the fashion industry they don't care they don't care about people of color being murdered by cops it has nothing to do with fashion from their vantage point right okay let's figure something out and make the fashion industry more accountable for the practices and the stuff that's happening in the industry we work with fashion organizations institutions and brands we also work with emerging designers but more importantly to us we work with students that are eager to work with the youth they do work with ages 12 to 24. thank you guys so much for coming out to the ffa fabric giveaway we had a lot of designers donate fabric to us and we wanted to make sure that you had fabrics as young designers and emerging designers this is totally free it's enough for everybody to take two rolls of fabric the public has been slowly but surely disillusioned by the fashion industry by brands and their promises the public has started to ask questions and inquire and have this direct communication thanks to social media four policies to change for brands to take a massive change we need the public's pressure the public awareness and that's where slow factory really invests our time in educating the public with open education having you guys on board is also an experiment for all of us to better this experience so some people were saying you know we need to have more than one class is that even possible because i know it's a lot the consumer 100 percent has realized that the power lies within them because fashion has become way more democratized it is happening in the streets it's on the news it's in every choice they make it's in every dollar that they spend every time they spend a dollar with the designer or brand they're endorsing that brand and it's more pressure on these brands and corporations now more than ever to rise to the occasion and rise to the expectation of the consumers you know there's this old saying i think from like the 1960s that's like don't shop anywhere that wouldn't hire you we have to continue to think those ways and abstain from places that aren't complying to these shifts and changes [Music] i love what's happening i just hope that the consumer realized their full potential and and their full power it's gonna be very scary when a consumer finally wakes up and said you know i don't need any of this i can make it myself i can buy vintage we just want the consumer to continue to exercise their power we are existing now in an era of activism in an era of revolution in an era of global uprising and it's not just a moment what's going on right now is not a moment we are in the epoch of climate change in the epoch of social uprising so fashion plays a tremendous role in all of this essentially what it teaches us is that things need to change let's go like let's see that change happen we want it that's a wrap on new york fashion week but come back monday when good morning vogue will be in london see you then [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Vogue

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Id: JC-qGzTIpEo

Length: 20min 53sec (1253 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020