Racism or ignorance: Has racism become the new marketing tool within the fashion industry?

Recently there has been an increase in the casual racism within the fashion industry particularly within high fashion brands such as Gucci, Moncler and Prada. There has been the case after where brands have produced garments that have explicitly racial images followed by apologies by creative directors of the brand. Gucci creates a black sweater that mimicked the black sambo caricature (an anti-black cartoon) or Moncler's coat which people also believed resemble the caricature.

This behaviour shows no signs of changes as brans do not seem to be learning from each other this call into question the true motives of these brands, are these brands using racism and the outrage of ethnic minorities specifically the black communities as a marketing tool. I believe that these garments are used to increase the visibility of the brand, the brands want to create outrage which often leads to open discussion on online platforms such as twitter and Instagram which have a vast number of users; perfect platforms for brand exposure. The discussion didn’t occur at a micro level within peer groups but at a macro level with large celebrities such as chance the rapper engaging in the discussion which provides free exposure.

This creates another point of discussion, how are these garments making into production in the first place. One reason I believe that is allowed to happen is because of the infrastructure of theme brands (much of the creative brands are dominated with white males and females) within the industry there is a lack of diversity at the tables of these brands who are able put forward opinions about the products and raise concerns, however, placing one token person of colour within the team is not enough; diversity is needed throughout the company and industry.

We do not just need a variety of ethnicities we need people of different shapes, sizes, ages and genders (a discussion I will explore in a future blog post.

The outrage and threats to boycott the brands have led to apologies and reorganisation within fashion houses, for example, Gucci set up a much more diverse team headed by Dapper Dan (a black male) who has a fashion line with Gucci. However, I question the authenticity of the apologies whether they genuinely feel they have done wrong or they are trying to prevent a decline in sales.

If these harmful and offensive incidents continue to occur, I think the best thing to do would be to stop spending our money in spaces that fail to take accountability but are not considerate to black and ethnic minorities. instead, we should be conscious consumers and giver our money to brands who share the same values and ethos as well as supporting BAME brands.

Below are a few emerging brands owned by ethnic minorities

1. William Okpo

2.A.AU

3. Pyer Moss

4. AAKS

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