Why do men lead women’s fashion? • FRANCE 24 English

Why do men lead women’s fashion? • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] Hello, I’m Annette Young and welcome to the 51%, a show about women reshaping our world. With fashion week upon us here in Paris, we’re taking a look at an industry that while largely targets women, is rarely led by them. This year, just two women have been appointed as new creative directors of major fashion houses. This despite an incredible shakeup in the industry. It seems progress on diversity is disappointing. Only 10 out of the 33 creative director roles are currently held by women and just two of them are women of color. For instance, female creative director Maria Glatia Curi for Dior and Virgin Viarda at Chanel were replaced by Jonathan Anderson at Dior and Matthew Blazy at Chanel. So, how is it in 2025 that men are still in charge of women’s fashion with me to discuss this is Dana Thomas of fashion journalist and Emily Hammond, a fashion historian and the new director of Pelle Galleria, a fashion museum here in Paris. Thank you to both of you for coming in. Let me start with you Dana. Should we be alarmed by this significant drop in women leading fashion houses? We should absolutely be alarmed and for me covering the industry now for 40 years. I find it alarming that I’m find writing less about women than I did even 15 or 20 years ago. I think it’s really um heartbreaking for women as customers. It’s a it’s a problem as for women as customers that we have only men telling us what we should be wearing. That there are very few women. There’s Stella McCartney, thank goodness, at her own house and there’s Phoebe Pho. There have been opportunities where this could have been rectified and it hasn’t been. The biggest misstep for me was Chanel, a house founded by a woman and is now has a global CEO who is a woman and yet they went and hired a man for that job when there were plenty of women who could have done a very good job at it. Emily, your thoughts? I agree. I find it uh very alarming. Uh I find it’s a interesting and rather troubling moment to be considering uh women in fashion. And uh I would argue that as Danny said, they’re there. Uh they’re not very visible, but there are many very talented women who deserve a chance and probably more visibility. Why do you think this is happening especially given the high number of women entering the industry? Oh, it’s simple because the business is still run in sea suite by by men mostly white men. I think almost I think it’s pretty fair to say only white men. I can’t think of any men of color at the top in the seauite top top echelons of caring LVMH or So they’re the ones ultimately making the decisions and they like to hire the same as they know. Emily, what are the major barriers to women working in this industry? There are many I think uh pertaining to fashion and more generally pertaining to any professional careers. Uh you have to go through all the different steps. uh you have to work hard of course but there’s definitely here I guess in the industry of fashion uh this necessity of uh committing so much of your life so many working hours uh to your work I don’t know if this explains everything but it is indeed a very demanding industry and perhaps uh I mean this is definitely something to debate uh possibly a moment when women maybe don’t want to uh work as much or at least have the same work life balance as some perhaps of the most uh ambitious men that are in the industry. But again, I feel this is uh the case of fashion but can possibly be applied to many other industries. Jana, what do you think are the major barriers for women? There are loads of women in the fashion business, but they’re going off and starting their own business because they can’t get these big brand jobs. There’s Marine S, who’s greatly talented, who won the LVMH award, and she has her own company. She would have been a genius fit at Chanel. I’ve seen them interviewing women and then I see them not hiring the women. I’ve actually been in, you know, in the room and listened to them talking about and batting around and talking to some of these women and then they don’t hire them. They hire the man. Do you think it’s part of the global backlash that we’re now witnessing against women’s rights and it’s playing out in this institution? Emily, we’ve seen what happens when women are in charge. I mean under uh Maria Gratzia Curi’s leadership at Dior female empowerment clearly became a guiding principle and brand sales jumped from reportedly $2.7 billion US in 2018 to more than $9 billion by 2023. Stella McCartney we’ve got the Olsen sisters at the row. I mean these are all incredible brands and clearly women when they’re in charge those brands are successful aren’t they? Absolutely. And uh to think as a historian I have to also stress that throughout history throughout the centuries um female leadership and entrepreneurship has been extremely successful. And I think this is not then a valid perspective to think that uh putting a woman in position of power, putting a woman in charge in terms of finance, in terms of strategy. We have so many examples of when it works, when it works in terms of numbers, not just of critical success. And we can go back as far as the 18th century and see a lot of women building their businesses with incredible success. I mean, we think about the the 1920s and 30s with with Elsa Chapperelli, Coco, Chanel, Madame Gre, you know, these were really fantastic women. And at these brands now, they’re they’re run by men. Let’s just pause there to talk about the demise of yet another key fashion trend. Body positivity was making inroads in recent years, promoting healthier, more inclusive representations of beauty, but it seems to have taken very much a backseat in 2025. As Olivia Salisar Windspear explains, [Music] Ultra Skinny is now back in vogue, if the latest runway shows are anything to go by. Plus-size models like Ashley Graham were walking for Dolian Gabbana, Christian Serriano, and Michael Kors in previous seasons, and French pinup Leslie Sedora fronted lucrative ready toear campaigns just a couple of years ago, but the body positivity movement has been conspicuous by its absence in recent collections. Vogue Business reports that larger models only accounted for 0.8% 8% of figures on the catwalks for the spring summer 2025 collections. A dip compared to 5 years ago. Even established models are now seeing their bookings evaporate. We all know each other. We see each other’s work. We pass each other. You know, like we know each other and and you know the girls that are working the most. And you know it’s bad when those girls aren’t working and those girls are messaging you and being like, “Me too. I’m serving again. I’m doing this. All of these brands that recently launched plus-size extended sizes, they’re discontinuing them. Old Navy launched up to size 30 in store, and within a year, they’ve eliminated almost all plus sizes in store. The shift back towards size zero models has also seen celebrities and influencers following suit, with actress Lily Collins modeling a Calvin Klein outfit in recent photos and prompting concerns over her strikingly thin physique. The trend’s been taken up on social media with a subculture known as skinny talk. Videos encouraging extreme dieting and even eating disorders, something medical professionals and parents have flagged up and urged Tik Tok to regulate. While potentially fatal conditions like anorexia are not new, the availability of drugs that work as appetite suppressants has had a major effect on body image. According to some experts, they say the arrival of GLP1 drugs like Ompic has changed the landscape with high-profile figures endorsing their use. Yes, I’m on row. They say GLP1’s for weight loss is a shortcut. It’s not. It’s science after kids. Actress Rebel Wilson has spoken about using the drugs to maintain her new weight as well as Oprah Winfrey. Many others are rumored to have reshaped their bodies using medication initially developed to treat diabetes. Yet, the larger question of representation in fashion is still a key factor in an industry where image is everything and not all bodies seem to be celebrated as much as others. Watching that report with me is Dana Thomas, a fashion journalist, and Emily Hammond, a fashion historian and new director of Pala Galleria, a fashion museum here in Paris. Dana, yet another highly disturbing U-turn in an industry when it comes to women and the representation of women uh and the fact that we’ve seen all sizes and all ages now on the runway parade for quite a few years. So, what is behind this trend? Is it casting agents, the designers themselves, or do we have to thank Ompic? It’s a bit of everything. The biggest U-turn came when Edward Enenfo was um asked to leave or left British Vogue because he had three pillars at the magazine, diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability. So, diversity, inclusivity meant that he put on the cover all shapes, all sizes, and all colors. and and once he was gone the um Anna Winter back in charge of British Vogue and therefore all the vogues and she herself is what we used to call a social x-ray extremely thin you know it starts from the top down and so when she says this is what we care about then that’s what everybody who works for her or works adjacent cares about now I’m going to throw you a funny curveball you didn’t see coming I was a model back in the 80s and I knew I experienced this back then where they would make us stand on a scale or you got sent home if you’d put on two kilos and you had to, you know, and the agent would watch what you ate and every take you out to lunch and dinner for a week to make sure you shed those two kilos. I went through that. It’s very controlling and it can and I saw girls who suffered from eating disorders in the business really badly. Do you see my hipbones and things like that? So, it’s it’s damaging, but it’s been damaging for a long time. And fashion revolves around that. They just want human hangers to show off these clothes. John Galliano used to complain the worst thing about designing for curvy women was that their boobs and their hips got in the way. I want to ask the both of you at this point, I mean because it is a rather depressing note in terms of what we’re witnessing with this industry which seems to be going backwards as opposed to going forward. Are there any young bright women fashion designers on the scene that we should be taking notice of? Emily, you first. I was quite uh excited because she was a former co-orker but an extremely talented designer. Uh one of the only uh women to be um put in the position of creative director at a brand uh over the past few months was Meil Rogue uh a Belgium designer extremely talented uh and I’m extremely happy for her and I’m sure the brand will benefit greatly from her vision for from her passion. Dana, this designer out of Sweden, Hodokova, is really interesting and she does a lot of upycling and blending the arts. She goes, you know, to flea markets and finds things and uses them, recycling furs and so on. So, we shouldn’t give up hope. Don’t give up hope. It’s all about hope. I want to thank both my guests, Emily Hammond from Pal Galleria and fashion journalist Dana Thomas. Thank you so much. That’s it for this edition. So, until our next show, bye for now.

With Paris Fashion Week upon us, we look at an industry that while largely targeting women, is rarely led by them. This year, just two women have been appointed as new creative directors of major fashion houses despite an incredible shake-up in the industry. So how is it that in 2025, men are still in charge of women’s fashion? Annette Young is joined by Dana Thomas, a fashion journalist and Emilie Hammen, a fashion historian and the new director of Palais Galliera, to discuss the unstitching of progress in the industry. We also report on how body positivity, where models of all sizes, ages and colour took to the runway, now seems to be out of fashion.
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