When Prada, Gucci and Burberry recently apologized for using racist imagery that drew an outcry online and calls for boycotts, discussion surged about the fashion industry’s strained history with blacks.
Brandice Daniel, founder and chief executive of Harlem’s Fashion Row, a business that helps emerging designers of color, saw the painful incidents as an opportunity. They are “helping to speed up progress” just as crises helped advance the civil-rights movement, Ms. Daniel said recently in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where she lives and works. “Now you’ve got brand X, Y and Z saying, ‘Crap, we might make that same freaking mistake.’ So that gives me a major opportunity to go, ‘OK, you guys, you see what’s happened. You need designers of color there.’ ”
Fashion’s wake-up call comes as other industries, realizing the benefits of a diverse work force and an array of viewpoints, are also changing their approaches to hiring and operations. Fashion companies are playing catch-up in their push for diverse perspectives in design studios and executive suites. Issues include a fight to engage more black models as well as charges of racial appropriation and stereotyping in some African-inspired or street-inspired collections. Black shoppers said they sometimes have felt targeted by security guards or ignored by sales clerks.
Ms. Daniel, who launched HFR in her Harlem apartment in 2007, has become a resource for fashion brands and organizations seeking young designers of color. Today, the 42-year-old Memphis native is working with companies including Nike and Google.
In a notoriously tough business, dozens of black designers have started fashion labels in the U.S., but unlike their white peers, only a handful have achieved commercial success. Ms. Daniel chalks that up to scant access to insiders who can make things happen. “There’s a place where we could actually become a bridge between brands and multicultural designers,” she said. Two HFR designers, Samantha Black and Kimberly Goldson, have competed on the television competition show “Project Runway.”
Shawn Outler, chief diversity officer at Macy’s Inc., said “We believe in the work of Harlem’s Fashion Row as it is in line with our core values,” including an eight-year-old initiative to foster minority- and women-owned suppliers. In February, Macy’s Herald Square in New York hosted a Black History Month event featuring HFR.
This month, Ms. Daniel worked with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to introduce the collections of three black emerging female designers HFR represents to prestigious retailers and members of the media. Steven Kolb, CFDA’s president and chief executive, said the event took shape after he asked Ms. Daniel how the CFDA could help. “For them, it was exposure to editors and buyers.” He said the CFDA will continue to host such networking dates with HFR and other organizations advocating for designers of color.
Other mentoring and networking efforts aim to increase the number of people of color. At IMG Models, which represents Karen Elson, Bella Hadid, Karlie Kloss and others, manager Ethan Miller hosted a gathering “for black people within the creative, fashion and art spaces,” called the Fabric. The first event took place in June on IMG Models’ rooftop in Manhattan; there also have been meetups in London and Paris. “Community, connections and mentorship cannot be underestimated in a relationship-driven business,” Mr. Miller said. He came up with the idea after often finding himself “on major advertising, editorial and catalogue sets all alone as a black person.”
“The reality is that there are few black people with power in any of those spaces,” he said. “I realized that I have the ability to change that. So that’s what I’m hoping to do with the Fabric.”
Gucci and Prada recently announced initiatives to be more inclusive in hiring, as well as training programs and scholarships for people of color. Prada was criticized in December because the windows of its boutique in New York’s Soho neighborhood displayed a charm with a design similar to a blackface character. In February, Gucci was assailed for selling a balaclava-style sweater that resembled blackface. Later that month, Burberry drew criticism for a runway style that featured what looked to many like a noose.
In January, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and PVH Corp., which owns brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, released a 16-page industry briefing on inclusion and diversity that encouraged companies to review their policies and practices. The report recommended efforts such as inclusion training, and identified problems including unconscious bias.
Last week, the CFDA named two black women as judges for its 2019 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. There hadn’t been a black judge on the panel in several years. “Clearly there’s benefits to fashion to be more inclusive and diverse, more ideas and more cultural perspectives just add to a stronger business overall,” Mr. Kolb said. “It’s the right thing to do besides that.”
Ms. Daniel said she had no industry connections when she arrived in New York in 2005 after studying fashion merchandising at the University of Tennessee. After seeing a fashion show in Brooklyn, she decided to stage one in Harlem with black designers. She approached boutique owners and designers, taking a page from her salesman father in persisting amid turndowns. HFR has put on an annual show ever since, with Ms. Daniel courting corporate sponsors and partners.
Last year, HFR collaborated with Nike and LeBron James on the star athlete’s first women’s basketball shoes. Three female black designers recommended by Ms. Daniel worked on the limited-edition shoes for Mr. James’s line, which sold out within minutes of their release in September.
“This shoe created a really important platform for the female, African-American designers to showcase their strength, creativity and fearlessness. And that’s what Harlem’s Fashion Row is all about,” Mr. James said. “They are empowering a whole generation of multicultural designers and we need more of that in every industry.”
One of the designers, Fe Noel, said, “Having the privilege to create the first LeBron James women’s sneaker with HFR and Nike was and is an incredible opportunity.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama wore a Fe Noel ensemble in late February while on her book tour.
After the Nike experience, Ms. Daniel hired a talent-acquisitions manager and launched a program where designers are paid to work for a year with a brand. The goal is to give designers a foot in the door and acquaint fashion brands with designers of color.
Ms. Daniel, who is married with a three-year-old daughter, still has the journal she kept when assembling HFR’s first runway show in 2007. “It’s...nice to...look back and see the whole journey,” she said. “I’m still on the journey.”
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