Fashion History; Evolution of Culture and Race

 Culture and Race plays a massive part in the curation of fashion and how it can remain diverse. Its evolution is also fairly recent with the late 80s and early 90s being breakthrough decades for African models as well as other ethnic minorities such as Asian and Latin American representations. Naomi Campbell is an example of a 90s supermodel who overcame a lot of prejudice in the modelling industry, with clear racism and discrimination shown against her. Speaking to Vogue in their November 2020 issue,Campbell said how she 'never used to refer to racism as what it is, but as territorialism' . This was because she never wanted to be criticised and was afraid to call out the discrimination. This links in with Campbell's own boldness within the industry and the protection she offered for other POC models as well. Naomi was also long associated with the term 'angry, black woman' -used to further place black people in to a box and create harmful stereotypes about them. However, she is famously known as the first woman of African descent to grace the cover of Vogue in 1988, which can be interpreted as the beginning of an evolution of race in the fashion industry.

Furthermore, religion has become a more recent component of fashion shows, with more fashion designers and runways choosing to include outfits that are exclusive for people of certain religions, and are aiming to be more inclusive in terms of peoples beliefs. One example is the famous brand that is Nike, who have become more accepting and functional for Muslims in particular. This was done through Nike designing Hijabs that are made for use when doing sports as well as for religious purposes. This also created a political statement by encouraging Muslims to be more widely recognised in the sport world as well as helping to end stigma and normalise hijabs. Therefore, fashion has evolved to be more diverse and rich by incorporating race and culture and changing the fashion industry to be more open minded. 

Resource- https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/hurts-tyra-banks-fashion-industry-race-not-trend-225546565.html

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