After launching the vintage storefront Berriez in 2018, Emma Zack held the brand's first runway show ever during New York Fashion Week in September. As founder, CEO and creative director, the one-woman team presented her "Vices" collection at Brooklyn's Ace Hotel, in collaboration with other independent designers, with models ranging from sizes XL to 5XL.
"From the jump, Berriez has been focused on plus sizes, so there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted not only for the majority of the models to be plus-sized, but to make a variety of body types the core foundation of the presentation," Zack tells Fashionista.
With comedian Madelynn Poulson emceeing the show, Zack ultimately wanted to add a more light-hearted energy to fashion week and the conversation surrounding inclusivity.
"Sometimes, fashion can just be so boring and serious," she says. "I wanted [the show] to focus on the models, the mood and obviously the clothing."
Unfortunately, Berriez's show was one of the only runways at New York Fashion Week — and Spring 2023 fashion month in its entirety — to incorporate inclusive sizing into its casting.
Right before the Covid-19 pandemic, plus-size representation at fashion week was beginning to see a drastic decrease. As The Fashion Spot reported, the preceding season had a record-setting 86 plus-size model appearances across New York, London, Milan and Paris — but it went down to 46. However, as writer and author Gianluca Russo argued on this very site, that number doesn't always make for the strongest, most accurate metric, as it can easily be inflated when "a brand like 11 Honoré hosts a show with an all-curve number or deflated when a certain in-demand model is, say, taking a season off." Still, it's one of the few ways we talk about size inclusivity at fashion week — and it's certainly the most visible.
The Spring 2023 shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris were some of the most jam-packed, celebrity-filled we've seen since the pandemic, and many were looking forward to picking up where things left off — not only when it came to decked-out collections, but to truly see if brands finally got the memo on diversity. Alas, the results were massively disappointing.
A recent report by InStyle surveyed every brand on the Spring 2023 schedule — a total of 327 designers — and looked into the sizes they sell. Tess Garcia found that "London represents the smallest size range overall, with just 1% of designers offering a size 20 or above and 27% reaching a 14." Next came Paris, then Milan, with New York ranking at the top, with "19% of designers producing a size 20 or above."
Fashion week is often seen as an indicator of what's "hot" versus "not." Many online have been sounding the alarm on the rise of early aughts aesthetics, like Y2K and indie sleaze, and how they're also resurfacing harmful societal notions associated with those eras, such as "heroin chic" and thigh-gapping thinness. Early aughts clothing trends were featured heavily on the Spring 2023 runways, and — much like during their initial moment in the limelight — they were rarely displayed in any iteration other than a sample size.
The lack of diverse sizing on the runway came as a disappointing realization for onlookers and industry insiders alike early on in the fashion month circuit, leading to a series of viral videos that gained more than 2.7 million views on TikTok alone. The discourse questioned whether brands are communicating to customers that their bodies are just not "on trend" this season.
"Sometimes it feels like we're going two steps forward then one step back," says Conor Kennedy, founder of New York-based agency Muse Models. "The runway will always be a part of the industry that's so symbolic because we're naturally going to look to it to see what's happening. I think many of us are still disappointed to see how many brands haven't chosen to expand their size diversity."
Kennedy started Muse's curve division a decade ago, after noticing how people weren't pushing for size diversity in his previous roles. While there has been some improvement over the years, runway representation hasn't changed to the extent many had hoped.
"There was a lot of performance art happening in 2020 — that's all I have to say about that," says Kelly Augustine, a stylist known for her work in inclusive dressing. "I guarantee you the demand hasn't changed on our end. In fact, I think we're craving exciting design more than ever. The fun options and interesting brands seem to have disappeared, and lots of the brands that offer plus sizes very much treat the sector like an afterthought."
Part of the issue is rooted in a brand's creative direction for the season. Many lack or won't develop samples that fit a range of bodies — so, when a model and their agent come into the equation near the end of the process, right before a collection makes its debut on the runway, it's a non-starter. The process varies from city to city and from brand to brand, but as Kennedy explains: "We can have every model of all sizes meet with every casting director, but that doesn't mean that there are the clothes for them to wear on a runway show. A lot of this really comes down to the clothes, and that's a decision made months ahead of time."
"Up until 2020, the only shows I had ever been cast in were commercial shows — never high fashion, fashion week shows," Lauren Frederick, a London-based model, tells Fashionista. "My first high-end show in Paris I didn't actually cast for — I was directly booked. Ultimately, I think it's down to the brand's creative director, and a lot of brands are still massively under-representing a diverse range of models. Mostly, if the brands are casting above sample size at all, they'll have the same four or five models for all shows, sometimes giving the one plus model two looks, which is interesting."
Over the years, we've seen brands play it safe when it comes to size-diverse casting by booking familiar faces for just about every show — Ashley Graham, Paloma Elsesser and Precious Lee, all three industry pioneers — leaving out a chunk of other, often newer talent who are struggling to find their way onto the runways. For Spring 2023, Graham walked at Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Matty Bovan and Balmain; Elsesser at Altuzarra, Eckhaus Latta, Marni, Gabriela Hearst, Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Michael Kors, Nguyen Inc., Nensi Dojaka, 16 Arlington, Andrea Adamo, Miaou and Chloé; and Lee at Fendi and Versace.
In New York, many brands — like Christian Siriano, Collina Strada, Eckhaus Latta, Tommy Hilfiger, Selkie — have made it a point to incorporate size-diverse casting into their presentations, but their European counterparts still lag far behind. Valentino, for example, was one of the few luxury houses to include a range of sizing for its Spring 2022 Haute Couture collection but opted not to showcase that vision at all this past season. What gives?