Fashion: it’s a white man’s world. Here’s why.

Though the controversial appointment was widely covered by fashion and general media, imminent change seems unlikely. Since the news of the appointment broke, two more white men were suggested for creative director positions: Davide Renne obtained a position at Moschino and Walter Chiapponi is rumoured to move to Blumarine. The inequality is deeply rooted but systematically silenced.

“Everyone is pissed off. For me, it has nothing to do with Sean or his appointment. It’s about the pattern.”

NDA contracts and a culture of secrecy continue to conceal the problem. 1 Granary interviewed multiple women and people of colour, currently in senior positions at Kering- and other conglomerate-owned luxury fashion houses. Their anger was palpable, but unsurprisingly, rendered absent from public discourse.

“Everyone is pissed off,” one head of design shared. “For me, it has nothing to do with Sean or his appointment. It’s about the pattern. The barriers of entry are just different for women than they are for men.” Those who know Sean describe the Irish-born designer as “kind”, “down-to-earth”, and “capable”, and everyone welcomes the decision to give opportunities to younger, behind-the-scenes profiles. The problem, however, is that those opportunities are only granted to a select demographic. “When I speak to the men I know in the industry, all of them will admit that they have advantages.”

“If you’re a good-looking white guy at a well-performing brand, you start being considered for these huge opportunities the moment you turn 30. This doesn’t happen to women or people of colour.”

None of the senior female designers we spoke to were approached to interview for the position, nor were any of their female peers, even though their experience and skillset match (or exceed) those of Sean’s.

This is not unusual. With the interview process notoriously opaque, discrimination passes under the radar too. Women don’t seem to be considered for these positions as often as men. When they do find an opportunity to apply, it’s because they grabbed it with their own hands. “I’ve had four interviews for creative director roles. It’s fine not to get the role, but all of the interviews I got because I heard about it through someone and reached out. It was not a process open to people in the field,” one head of design shared.

Out of 38 creative directors hired by Kering since 1995, five have been women. That’s 13%.

“If you’re a good-looking white guy at a well-performing brand, you start being considered for these huge opportunities the moment you turn 30. This doesn’t happen to women or people of colour,” another head of design said. “As a woman you need to prove yourself. These men are automatically handed the keys to the house.”

Can you think of one 30-year-old woman recruited straight into creative leadership? Does a Black person need to win 13 Grammy Awards or set up a billion-dollar company within five years before having a shot at these positions? 

Out of 38 creative directors hired by Kering since 1995, five have been women. That’s 13%. But the industry is rife with examples of influential and successful creative directors who aren’t male or white. However, they all built their success independently before obtaining industry recognition. Just think of Rei Kawakubo, Vivienne Westwood, or Virgil Abloh ‒ all of whom achieved legendary creative director status by creating their own context for it. Maria Grazia Chiuri had a proven track record at Valentino and helped the company grow into a billion-dollar brand over 17 years before she was considered for a creative director role (that wasn’t shared with a man).

Can you think of one 30-year-old woman recruited straight into creative leadership? Does a Black person need to win 13 Grammy Awards or set up a billion-dollar company within five years before having a shot at these positions?

Women are overrepresented in fashion education, and in both junior and senior positions, they seem to disappear entirely from the leadership roles. 

When looking for a new creative director, brands realistically have three options. Either they choose a public profile ‒ the confirmed legend with a recognisable name (think Hedi Slimane) or the rising star with their own brand and online community (think Harris Reed) ‒ or they promote a behind-the-scenes player (that would be Sean McGirr). In the case of the latter, recruiters look for heads of design and RTW, people who didn’t just focus on one specialty but have enough leadership experience across categories.

This is where the gender inequality becomes strikingly apparent. Race and class inequality remain a massive challenge at any stage of a fashion design career, starting with college applications, but where women are overrepresented in fashion education, and in both junior and senior positions, they seem to disappear entirely from the leadership roles.

Of course, sexism doesn’t just come out to play during interviews for leadership positions. Women might be overrepresented in education but that doesn’t mean they don’t face discrimination. Almost everyone we spoke to observed how male students faced preferential treatment. “From the offset, male students are generally encouraged and championed more, which in turn sets them up for success when they apply or are recommended for jobs,” one London-based independent designer observed. “I think it’s pretty evident when you look at the numbers of male students that end up in the press show compared to female students, despite there often being more women than men on these courses.”

The mothers we spoke to attested to being treated differently, considered less dedicated or capable because of their family responsibilities.

So how are the mechanisms of sexism keeping women from leadership positions in fashion? The most obvious answer, and one offered by more than one of our anonymous interviewees, is motherhood. Head positions are usually obtained ten to twenty years into a person’s career, at ages 35 to 45. For women who have children, this is a period where work and life are balanced differently, and both their own health and that of their children require more attention. They can’t work long and unexpected hours, or move to another capital city on a whim.

The mothers we spoke to attested to being treated differently, considered less dedicated or capable because of their family responsibilities. One womenswear designer explained how interviews for design director jobs always ended with the interviewees questioning her commitment. “I always get asked how I would manage my work life-balance. I tend to get asked about this by female head hunters more than male. Women with families question me – “Would you be able to handle this?” This needs to change. If someone is good for the job, they should make the job suit them.”

“Once you reach an age where you could start having children, there are a lot of opinions.”

One recruiter remembered a case where someone applying for a creative director position was rejected based on her motherhood. “She’ll never see her children,” the female head of HR at the Paris-based luxury house supposedly said, fully convinced she was protecting the applicant.

But this gendered expectation also weighs on the women who do not want children. “Once you reach an age where you could start having children, there are a lot of opinions,” one senior womenswear designer shared. “Every time I gained another year, there would be comments made about me potentially having children, while I knew it wasn’t a realistic option with the job I was in.” Women face the presupposition that they are less dedicated to the job, whether they have children or not. “People assume you will leave, and that when you come back, you will care less about the job.”

Another hurdle mentioned by the women we spoke to was women’s (biological or learned, depending on who you ask) lack of assertiveness. One senior designer remembers a manager stating that women can’t survive fashion unless they “learn to act like dogs.” Supposedly, women aren’t equipped to deal with the pressure of working in the fashion industry. “You’re still dealing with women who were incentivized to empathize. They might tend to step back when a slightly more brazen colleague steps forward,” said one senior womenswear designer, who recalls being labelled “too nice” throughout her career. “It’s about the way women have been conditioned to behave. There is an older generation that still has very outdated expectations of women in the workplace.”

Both Kering and LVMH have set up initiatives to empower women ‒ if not this, what exactly have they been working on?

Yet, these supposed gender differences don’t suffice to explain the lack of diversity at the top. Otherwise, the all-male lineup wouldn’t look so white either. “There have been so many examples of extremely talented women, with and without children. That shouldn’t be the debate. There is something else going on here,” said one designer.

If we were to fully accept the possibility that both motherhood and behavioural patterns are the main barriers holding women in fashion back from career growth, why has our industry not developed supportive work structures or leadership courses to help tackle these issues? In an industry where women are so obviously overrepresented, shouldn’t their career advancement be considered a priority? Both Kering and LVMH have set up initiatives to empower women ‒ if not this, what exactly have they been working on? “There is no amount of “women initiatives” you can roll out to fix this. The only thing you can do – Hire. Women. In these jobs.”

“There is this unspoken boys’ club. They speak the same language, they understand each other. There are inside jokes.”

The fashion industry is largely focussed on women, but that doesn’t mean the rules of the old boys’ club don’t apply. In conglomerate-owned businesses, the C-suite is predominantly governed by men. With the growing power and influence of business departments within luxury fashion companies and the role of the CEO with it, leadership appointments are more often made by men, who are more likely to choose men. “There is this unspoken boys’ club. They speak the same language, they understand each other. There are inside jokes,” one senior consultant shared.

“If there’s a business trip or a dinner, any team building experience, I always felt like they didn’t really want the girls there. The travelling for research trips, they would go out to clubs, and as a girl – at the start, I was sad to not be invited, but I also didn’t want to be somewhere I wasn’t welcome,” a womenswear designer added.

This imbalance also creates additional hurdles for the women and people of colour who do make it to the top. “When you work with a male CEO, a lot of white men in strategic positions, are you being heard, are you being respected?” observed the recruiter. Making it into the room is meaningless if you’re not being listened to once you’re there. “When I first started joining those meetings where everyone is over 50, white, male, and straight, they would look at me like I’m a child,” accounted one Asian designer. “As much as these companies love putting us on the covers of their campaigns, they don’t include us in the decision-making.” Women and people of colour are simply not getting the support they need to strive in these contexts.

Currently, the only acceptable professional attitude in fashion is one of cult-like dedication. Late working hours and last-minute changes to the schedule are customary.

The truth is, if you want to embrace different profiles, you need to embrace different working methods. Currently, the only acceptable professional attitude in fashion is one of cult-like dedication. Late working hours and last-minute changes to the schedule are customary. “You’re available on weekends, you’re available at night, and it’s considered a normal thing. When you have a baby and children that are small you cannot do that anymore,” said one senior designer, who gave birth to her child eight months ago and had to switch brands to accommodate her parenting needs. “You need to acknowledge the biological difference, and help women get those jobs, rather than pretending these issues aren’t there,” a recruiter observed.

There is another reason these biases are so difficult to address in fashion: creative skillfulness and vision aren’t objectively quantifiable. As a result, the standards of artistic greatness are fraught with power relations.

In most fashion studios, the work culture is decided by the creative director. Often, they are given the power to fully dictate their own schedule and expect their teams to cater to that. If only one type of person is granted that organisational power, employees with different working methods or communicative styles are naturally pushed back. In fashion, only a few seem to truly belong. Everyone else adapts.

There is another reason these biases are so difficult to address in fashion: creative skillfulness and vision aren’t objectively quantifiable. As a result, the standards of artistic greatness are fraught with power relations. “You cannot fire a doctor because you have a feeling they’re not a good doctor, whereas in fashion, a manager can disadvantage an employee based on their taste level. This is an industry based on vibes, and this opens an enormous bias to these kinds of problems,” explained a design director.

This also adds up in the job interview. “When it comes to these creative director appointments, there is a huge element of personal click,” said one female design consultant of colour, who has personally been interviewed for a creative director role multiple times. “It’s human nature, you’re more likely to trust someone who looks like you. It’s an unconscious bias very often. There are racist people, obviously, but a lot of times, people are unconsciously biased, even women and people of colour.”

“When it comes to recruitment for creative directors, 99% of the time, the final decision will be made on a personality basis.”

The design consultant isn’t the only woman who admitted to being interviewed for a creative director position only to lose out in the final round. The story is always the same. Their experience and skill set meet the demands of the house and their portfolio receives a positive response, but then they are rejected based on the final interview ‒ without any feedback.

“When it comes to recruitment for creative directors, 99% of the time, the final decision will be made on a personality basis,” explains Alice Bouleau, recruitment consultant at Sterling International. “Whoever is in charge of the decision will say something like ‘I clicked better with the other person, I had a better fit.’ It’s always hard to hear for the candidate, and it’s hard to explain, but you want to partner with someone you feel a connection with, and unfortunately, men will click better with other men. They don’t necessarily realise they’re doing it. ”

There is an assurance in choosing something you recognise and safety in picking what you know. Sameness feels reassuring, which is how an industry that promotes itself as progressive and forward-thinking developed a copy-paste formula when it came to the selection of its creative leaders.

This extends beyond sexism. A highly-coveted position like creative director reveals the industry’s internal biases on many levels. “There is not only a stereotype of a male creative director. There is also a stereotype of female creative directors,” said one senior designer, who, as an Asian woman, often felt she didn’t fully fit the part of creative leadership. “When you think about Claire Waight Keller, Gabriela Hirst, Stella Mccartney, or Phoebe Philo. They are all the same height. They are all size 0, white females. The new creative director of Chloé might be from a different ethnic background but she fits into the height and the size 0 thing. There is a stereotype of who is successful in fashion on a very high level.”

Safety also informs the decision-making process beyond the interpersonal. As our industry is shifting and feverishly trying to adapt to changing consumer habits, choosing what you know feels like a safe bet. “When it comes to the future of our industry, many of us don’t have answers, so if you have a set idea of how things are done, you’ll be favoured over someone who is asking questions,” observes Aude Fellay, fashion theorist and teacher at HEAD Geneva. “That is why white men are favoured. They tend to have that fixed worldview, they have answers, which is very reassuring. But what we need today is questions.”

This is where the depth of our cognitive biases are revealed. What does a talented creative director look like in our collective imagination? If the people routinely celebrated as the best leaders, as the origin of creativity, are white men, anyone who looks different comes second.

Fashion media has a massively influential role to play here. A study by Allyson Stokes, published in the journal Gender and Society in 2015, analysed the content of 157 entries in Voguepedia’s design canon and 96 fashion media articles. The researcher discovered how fashion press contributes to a gendered image of the ideal fashion designer. Generally, women’s designs are depicted as driven by consumers, whereas men’s appear driven by their own creative visions. In general, women’s designs are valorized as “practical”, “easy to wear”, and “appealing to mainstream consumers”, while men are represented as “innovators” and “risk-takers”. Together, these small differences contribute to a massive gender division in which men are the origin of creativity and women are at their service, dedicated to executing their vision.

Fashion critics have overlooked the striking monotony of these creative leaders as they were presented in reaction to the viral hype movement within fashion, and framed as a return to “real design”.

Similarly, fashion media has routinely framed these “safe bet” appointments as progressive counter-reactions to a supposed decline in design quality. As our industry becomes increasingly image-driven and social media largely drives marketing and design decisions, the old guard of fashion criticism started making calls for a return to “the good old days”. In the case of the Kering appointments, the creative directors all fit within a longstanding tradition of white men with in-house design credentials. “They are reassuring figures because they represent the essence of what a designer should be and look like,” explains Aude.

Fashion critics have overlooked the striking monotony of these creative leaders as they were presented in reaction to the viral hype movement within fashion, and framed as a return to “real design”. Vanessa Friedman positioning Matthieu Blazy as the ‘anti-Pharell’ is a classic example of how these conservative appointments can be reframed and the racial inequality normalised.

These internal biases can spark explicitly racist or sexist behaviour in some cases, but more often, and especially in an industry like fashion where left-leaning politics dominate public discourse, the prejudice stays hidden, silently guiding appointment decisions until the Kering CD lineup reads like Raf Simons lookalike competition.

It takes a lot of work, both on a personal and structural level, to break out of this default mindset, to look at someone’s work and ask yourself ‒ “do I actually like this, or does the person who made it just look like a person whose work I should like?”

And the doing work matters, not just to those who design and make our clothes, but also to those who wear them. “It will always be different when the story is told by a woman. Because we’re wearing it, living in it, we have different things to say about the woman’s body. I don’t like the idea of putting women’s body through pain. I’ve lived it just by wearing bras. If we shadow the perspective of half of the population, it’s very sad. The same counts for diversity, if it’s only designed by white people, it will never be as interesting.”

To change these instincts, we need to address them and assure people feel safe to speak up (or be challenged) when something goes wrong. But that can’t be done if everyone’s afraid to talk. “In fashion, there is this immense fear of retaliation. How do you publicly speak against Kering? That means you can no longer apply to half of the jobs out there,” one of our interviewees said.

It can be frustrating to hear someone suggest “a conversation” as a response to deeply institutionalised unfairness, but we won’t fix this problem unless everyone in this industry ‒ from the CEO to the fashion critic ‒ learns to detangle that “white man = creative genius” neural pathway, and honestly asks themselves what creative genius looks like to them.

Hopefully, the creative directors at Kering, none of whom have responded to the controversy, are doing their part too, and taking notes.