Gucci Pledges More Diversity From the Brand

Since Alessandro Michele took the helm of Gucci in 2015, the brand has the living embodiment of the fire emoji. The bags, shoes, and the gowns are on every with an Instagram account — as well as some without. Unfortunately, up until recently, Gucci still struggled with diversity in its ad campaigns and runway shows. The Spring 2017 collection, which debuted in September, featured 75 looks, only a small handful of which were shown on non-white models. At Business of Fashion’s VOICES panel in December, casting agent James Scully gave the brand “two thumbs down for lack of diversity”—all while Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri sat in the audience.

But then, finally, a sign of change. In January, Gucci teased a pre-fall campaign featuring a cast of nine black models and today, the brand announced that it would be asking the Italian non-profit Parks — Liberi e Uguali (which translates to “Free and Equal”) to help make the company more inclusive and diverse going forward. Bizzari commented on the partnership to WWD, saying,

“In the past two years, we have implemented a complete turnaround of our company, following our mantra of being the voice of self-expression. Attracting, retaining and promoting talent, while celebrating ethnic, age, sexual and gender diversity, sexual orientation and gender identity across the company, is our mission, which is completely consistent with the vision of our parent company, Kering.”

Parks, which was founded in 2010, helps companies realize their own bias in everything from hiring and compensation to corporate culture, and advises them on how to best fix the problems on a short and long-term basis.

For more evidence of how big of a step this is for Gucci, look back to 2013, when casting director Barbara Nicoli had this to say about diversity on the Gucci runway,

“Gucci never has a huge number of black girls in the show because in the mind of Frida [Giannini, Gucci’s creative director], she wants this [specific] type of girl — no matter the color of the skin. She wants this girl, then if the model she likes is black or Asian, it’s fine. But when you do a casting, [you see a lot fewer black and Asian models than white models]. I think if you’re very strict on your collection and have a vision, it’s pretty difficult to accept someone who is far from your idea of the woman wearing your clothes. It’s all about your beauty ideal, not the color of your skin or race. It’s also true that, for example, Caucasians have a specific body type, black girls have a specific body shape, and Asian girls have a specific body shape. So I guess there are some collections where it’s more perfect for an Asian body shape because they are more flat and less sexy, in a way.”

Needless to say, it’s inspiring to see Gucci moving in the right direction on and off its runways, when it comes to race, gender, sexual orientation, and equality.

Related: Gucci's Historic New Campaign Features a Record 9 Black Models

Check this out: