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Fashion Springs Forward! Some Defining Observations From New York Fashion Week

February 18, 2016 | Posted at 11:30 pm | by Proud2BMe (Follow User)

Photo Credit: (Image courtesy of Proud2BMe)

On Thursday, New York Fashion Week came to a close—meaning that we can let go of our hopes of seeing Karl Lagerfeld or Anna Wintour roaming the streets of SoHo or coolly exploring Moynihan Station. While titans like Wintour and Lagerfeld have been staples of fashion weeks across the world for quite some time now, it is clear that tides are changing in ways that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.
 

Ten-plus years ago, the body ideal of the fashion industry was essentially Kate Moss, who has been quoted saying, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” This sentence in and of itself seems to epitomize what fashion tried to embody at the time. Most fashion shows excluded women who strayed away from that body archetype, the ethnically diverse and those who weren’t traditionally feminine.
 

After observing NYFW via Instagram, fashion blogs and an emerging fashion designers show, it was clear to me that we are not where we used to be in terms of body positivity and ethnic diversity. While attending an emerging designer’s fashion show last week, it was clear that the younger generation of fashion designers vary more than ever before in the types of clothes they make and the people they aim to dress.
 

Nearly every designer at this show supported racial diversity. However, even though models of varying heights walked, most had the same body type. Although this is not the extreme change we’d like to see, it is nice to see designers taking some steps towards inclusivity. While these emerging designers were great, there are other newcomer mavericks whom I believe will change the next generation of fashion.
 
 

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