New York Fashion Week inches toward inclusivity, but more progress is needed

NEW YORK -- New York Fashion Week runways have been dominated by white, thin young women for the better part of two decades, since the likes of Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks and the supermodels of the early 90s were replaced by a slew of indistinguishable women top designers began recruiting from Eastern European countries. What was revolutionary at the time -- the idea of replacing big personalities and signature walks with women who act more like coat hangers -- became the status quo, one that's been hard to shake in the years since.

But a handful of forward-thinking designers, along with a new crop of supermodels relished for their ability to showcase their personalities on Instagram and Twitter, are slowly changing that aesthetic and including more women of color and with fuller figures.

"Some designers, I think, think of the models as mannequins and they want to kind of wipe their personality away. And I actually go the opposite," Michael Kors told USA TODAY backstage before his runway show Wednesday. "I find that seeing the individuality of the girl is what’s exciting, and if I know them well, I actually put them in clothes I think they would want to wear."

Kors didn't include women above a size 12 in his runway show, citing logistical issues.

"The only reason we don’t have plus size on the runway, for me to have the range of sizes I would have to have a football stadium filled with clothes before I was able to put on a fashion show. I’d have to have everything from a size 2 to a size 18," he says. "But in real life, all of these clothes are available in this wider range in sizes. We’re one of the few people who send designer clothes down the runway where we make a size 16."

It's this mentality that's earned him the adoration of women including legendary model Carolyn Murphy, who at 42, closed the Kors show looking just as comfortable and perfectly cast as Joan Smalls, 28, who opened it. And of Zendaya, who along with model Martha Hunt, is the new face of Kors' Access smartwatch which launched earlier in the week. The former Disney star has been vocal about the need for more representation of all women in Hollywood and fashion. She's a fan of Kors, she confessed, due in no small part to his wide definition of beauty.

"He's the bomb," she laughed at the Access launch party, telling USA TODAY the two bonded while attending the Met Ball together this year.  "I think that just encourages me to want to display different types of beauty. I just want every woman to see themselves in me."

And women did see her at a variety of places over the week, including as a judge at the finale of the new season of Project Runway (Thursdays, 9 p.m. ET on Lifetime), a position Kors held for nine years.

Christian Siriano, another Project Runway alum, is similarly pushing traditional bounds. Over the summer he answered an all-call from Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, who vented on Twitter that she'd been unable to find a designer to dress her for the movie's premiere. A snub she said was due to designers' lack of interest in dressing a black woman larger than a size 2.

Actresses of all shapes and sizes showed up for his show last week and expressed their delight at seeing five models size 12 and above walk alongside models who fit the traditional sample size.

"He placed them in seamlessly, they looked like they belonged," says Ashley Graham, who walked in the Additional Elle show a few days later at Kia's STYLE360 studio in her own lingerie line. "He’s one of the true trailblazers in high end designers who really is making a difference and showing how easy it is to show diversity."

Addition Elle, the Canadian retailer which showed for a second season with a full lineup of plus size models, is one of several smaller shows that's cropped up during the week to go full-force at displaying a different perspective of beauty. Last Monday, Anniesa Hasibuan became the first Indonesian designer to present at an official New York Fashion Week venue and the first to show a collection with every model wearing a hijab. And noted Chinese designer Lan Yu, who specializes in traditional Su embroidery, showed for the first time in New York on Tuesday.

But more established designers are also making subtle changes in their lineups that reflect a greater push for diversity. J. Crew bypassed professional models and cast friends and employees of the brand to pose in clothing, and incorporated a wide variety of sizes, ages and skin tones. Murphy made another appearance, at Ralph Lauren along with Stella Tennant, 45, calling into question the bias towards casting teenage models. Plus model Marquita Pring walked in the Tome show.  And Tommy Hilfiger tapped Gigi Hadid as a design partner for his see-now-buy-now collection, partly he said because she has some curves.

There is still a much broader discussion surrounding the inclusion of plus sizes in the world of high fashion to be had, and a persistently large racial disparity in model castings. Marc Jacobs, whose show traditionally closes fashion week, is receiving backlash for cultural appropriation after putting all 52 models in dreadlock-style wigs, but casting only a handful of black models.

However, there is an overall feeling that the tide has started to turn.

"There has been such a leap in the last two years in diversity, that I’m not going to complain," Graham says. "But I see the progress and also see where we need to go."

And in an industry that prides itself on being innovative, it's hard to envision runways filled with lithe white women remaining in vogue forever.

"It’s a global world," says Kors. "So anything that feels to me just kind of one dimensional, I just think is really old fashioned."