Zadrian Smith, one of the founding members of the Fashion Minority Alliance, talks to Co-Founder of The Collective, Alan Hunt, about fashion’s diversity issue and his own fight for change.
The Fashion Minority Alliance is a non-profit and non-partisan special interest group with the objective to tactically work with fashion and beauty industry stakeholders to build and foster a more diverse, balanced and inclusive industry that advances meaningful and long-term equality for BIPOC and Historically Marginalised talent. Through representation, meaningful initiatives and inclusion, across all levels and departments in the industry, their aim is to create structures that move beyond rhetoric in order to realise equitable opportunities and pay.
Alan Hunt (AH): Zadrian, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. I want to start by asking you about your 2021 highlights.
Zadrian Smith (ZS): Thanks Alan. The first thing that comes to my mind is the work I’ve done this year with Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali, the Black British stars of the critically acclaimed coming-of-age-drama Rocks. When my business partner, Sarah Edmiston, and I were styling these young women, it became very clear that they didn’t feel recognised or represented in the fashion and beauty industries.
“The fashion industry is business driven and product orientated which so often leaves it lacking humanity.”
It’s been this lack of humanity and the feeling of constantly swimming against the tide which has left me, in the past, very close to leaving the industry. This year, though, through my work with Bukky, Kosar, and also Ariana DeBose, I have found a new sense of purpose. I know now that my mission is to shift perspectives on fashion, challenge the status quo and make sure that people like Ariana, Bukky and Kosar feel heard and understood.
AH: You mention that you have been close to leaving the industry in the past. Is this because of some of your own experiences or because you weren’t seeing any progress?
ZS: I think it’s a combination of both. At the start of my career, I constantly felt othered. If I spoke out about anything, I was labelled as aggressive, where if a white person spoke out, they weren’t labelled in that way. You do reach a breaking point where it can all become too much.
“While the fashion industry still has a lot of isms it needs to clear itself of – ageism, sexism, racism – the list goes on, I am starting to slowly see the tide turning.”
AH: Let’s look ahead then to next year. You’ve said that this year you’ve found your sense of purpose. Are you more hopeful?
ZS: Yes, I’m starting to see that I can control the narrative of what fashion can be for Black and other marginalised communities, rather than letting fashion dictate to us what it has to be. Ever since going into partnership with Sarah, and it is perhaps because I’m in partnership with a white woman, I have been able to experience and access things that I wasn’t able to before. I think this is testament to there being strength in numbers. When you have people from different walks of life, with different perspectives coming together, it becomes a stronger fight. Having worked in the industry for 12 years, I’m now starting to see the return on all of my hard work and effort.
“I feel fortunate that in my lifetime I’m able to see my work, which was not always well received, start to cause ripple effects of change.”
AH: Are you starting to see real change from the brands that you work with or are most efforts to be more inclusive and diverse just acts of tokenism?
ZS: I think probably 60% of it is tokenism and 40% of it is brands actually taking the time to do the work. The four brands that immediately come to mind, where I’ve seen their work and progress, are Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Etro. However, there are so many brands who have still made no progress. I can think of lots of luxury jewellery designers who stayed silent throughout the entire BLM movement. Any brand who prioritises business over people in this way is a brand I’m not interested in working with.
AH: From a D&I perspective, do you think there are challenges that are unique to the fashion industry?
ZS: Yes. If you look at fashion’s foundations, it was built for the majority which has always been white people. It was not built with minorities in mind. Many of the decision makers in the industry are of a generation where they still retain this mindset and don’t want to change, because to change would require a relinquishing of power.
AH: We know that Gen Z are the most socially responsible generation yet in terms of their buying habits. Do you think that they will be pivotal in this fight for change?
ZS: Absolutely. I think the platforms that they have access to, which my generation did not, is causing change to happen far more rapidly. Through social media, they are able to connect with people from all over the world. They can speak up for injustice in a much more vocal way, and hear about injustices elsewhere that, if not for social media, we wouldn’t know about.
AH: Finally, what would you like your legacy to be?
ZS: I think traditionally legacy is something that you think about at the end of your career, but I think that I live my legacy every day through the work that I’m doing and what I’m speaking out against. My legacy is a lived experience with me as the medium and my work a projection of that.
In conversation with Zadrian Smith of the Fashion Minority Alliance
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