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The Black in Fashion Council Launches with 38 Company Partners, Including Condé Nast, Prabal Gurung, and Glossier

Lindsay Peoples Wagner, Teen Vogue’s editor-in-chief, and Sandrine Charles, a public relations expert, founded the Black in Fashion Council in late June as a way to partner with fashion companies and hold them accountable to making internal changes around diversity and inclusion. Today, the Council is announcing the first 38 companies that have signed up to participate. The list spans all areas of the fashion and beauty realms, from talent agencies like CAA and DNA Models to retailers such as Farfetch, Moda Operandi, and TheRealReal to publishers and websites including Condé Nast and Fashionista. Brandon Maxwell, Prabal Gurung, and Tommy Hilfiger are among the fashion brands that have signed up; on the beauty side Glossier and L’Oreal are on board.

“Brands have pledged a commitment to work with The Black in Fashion Council for the next three years and work with the Human Rights Campaign to put policies into practice further to demonstrate their commitment to Black employees at all levels,” the BIFC statement reads. “Executive board members will be having conversations with industry stakeholders starting in August 2020 to allow brands to fully understand the complex ways in which we all need to commit to making inclusivity the lens in which we see everything, and have the opportunity to rise to the occasion of making changes over the next three years as we know this is a process that takes time. BIFC will release generalized cumulative results in the fall of 2021, giving insight into the progress that the industry has seen.”

The organization’s foundational mission is to evolve fashion’s inclusivity beyond call-out culture and to work to make measurable change for Black employees from the C-suite to junior levels. “What sets us apart,” Charles told Vogue earlier this year, “is we want to show that we’re in solidarity with you, we want to not only support your group but empower you with resources that you may or may not have. That’s really important: to have a network of people that are working for the same good with egos aside.”

The brands that have signed on so far will work closely with BIFC’s executive board starting this year, with more companies expected to join after the summer holidays conclude. Among them is Universal Standard, a direct-to-consumer fashion company that offers sizing from 00 to 40. “As a brand that is all about revolutionary inclusivity, we know that we have a huge responsibility to live up to our mission,” says Alexandra Waldman, the co-founder and COO of Universal Standard. “Universal Standard is deeply committed to ensuring that authentic representation is present within our organization and across every aspect of our business, but we know that we can make an even bigger impact by learning and collaborating with others in the industry. Being part of the Black in Fashion Council is an honor and a great opportunity for us to take concrete steps to creating the change we want to see in the world, where Black women and Black people of all gender identities are included and represented as they are.”

In addition to announcing brand partners, the BIFC is also accepting membership applications, priced at $50 for the assistant level and $100 for senior membership. Once applications are reviewed by a small committee, members will have access to all of BIFC’s programming and sub-committees. “By organizing a resilient group of editors, models, stylists, media executives, assistants, freelance creatives, and industry stakeholders, we aim to build a new foundation for inclusivity,” the organization writes. “For this change to occur, non-Black brands, publications, and people of influence have to carefully examine the roles they’ve played in either helping or hurting Black people who work in these spaces.”

Find the full list of companies partnering with the Black in Fashion Council here:

Athleta

Banana Republic

BFA

Birchbox

Brandon Maxwell

Browns

CAA

Calvin Klein

Cartier North America

Condé Nast

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