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Selected as not only is it a real diverse image, it is also really powerful and highlights the fight we still have to overcome within the body positive movement.

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Left: Loved the message behind the imagery and Georgie Clarke was mentioned in the article and so I, therefore, wanted to feature one of her images.

Middle: Imagery of Lizzo as she was mentioned in the article, highlights how transparent she is with her body image on social media.

Right: Imagery of Chessie King as she was mentioned in the article. Fun, image with graphics by Ruby Rose. It shows her personality and the amazing side of the movement.

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These were my moodboards I created before I selected the imagery for my slides.
Provided excellent inspiration for me to pick suitable images that not only fit with the brand aesthetic, but compliment my presentation at the same time.

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Image was selected as I wanted something simplistic for this page as I have a busy sidebar and callout at the bottom. A black and white image gives a powerful message to show how easy it can be to be diverse, it's simple, yet sexy and effective.

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I created a customer profile to display our ideal customer for our retail concept

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These two images were selected as I felt that they reflected the soft, pastel brand aesthetic well and showed a balance of the campaign ideas and the pop up ideas on the slide.

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based on the fact that all bodies are beautiful and that we must accept them all. Tall or short, obese or thin, big or small, etc.

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Final designs for the makeup product range

Flower inspired makeup collection

Used imagery of makeup products/past glossier products and adapted them with the InBloom logos

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Has been accused of promoting dangerous stereotypes and lacking any form of diversity.

The lack of plus-size models in addition to the former CEO’s remarks about transgender models not having their place in the brand’s fashion show struck a nerve for many consumers.

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Most Iconic Moments of Inclusivity from the last decade

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Most Iconic Moments of Inclusivity from the last decade

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The Most Inclusive Fashion and Beauty Moments of the Decade

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From the launch of Fenty Beauty to Chromat’s first NYFW show.

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I believe that the imagery I selected nicely reflects the message told in the article and compliments the points made.

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initial moodboards for imagery featured on the article

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initial moodboards for imagery featured on the article

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Known for having a one size fits all sizing range.

Approx a size 8-10

Completely uninclusive

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The Insidious Impact of Brandy Melville's 'One Size Fits All' Approach

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Written by Molly Codyre Illustrated by Prince Pretzl "Welcome to Brandy Melville!" Years later, this phrase - uttered by influencer Lauren Servideo in a satirical Instagram video - still fills me with feelings of imminent dread accompanied by flashbacks of hot tears streaming down my face in a changing room.

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The idea of focusing only on the positive aspects of life, while rejecting or dismissing negative emotions, which are part of our human nature.

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Images were selected based off of what was mentioned in the text:

LEFT: Dolce & Gabbana diversity ad blunder

MIDDLE: Victoria's Secret fashion show 2018

RIGHT: Lounge Underwear advertising

The imagery backs up what I mentioned in the article and provides the reader with visual aids to the good and bad of diverse marketing.

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A social media AD I created for the social media launch of the pop-up

Clean simple, on-brand, eyecatching with an element of mystery

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added overlays of flowers & our logo to create a mock-up of a taxi wrap

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For some, body posi can be empowering however everybody moves at their own pace and is on their own self love journey.

Flooding people with the idea that you should "love yourself" etc is an unrealistic idea.

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I wanted to start by looking into a variety of images relating to Body Positivity and Self Love before I selected my final imagery

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the difference between inclusivity and diversity

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the difference between inclusivity and diversity

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Visited the Nike shop on Oxford Street

Sparked inspiration of what to/not do regarding our own retail concept

Nike had mannequins of different sizes, which made me think about my article concept

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My group and I decided on a Glossier pop up as our concept

I came up with the name 'Glossier in Bloom' as the name of our floral inspired collection

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The Effect of Politics on Fashion (Week 6)

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The Effect of Politics on Fashion (Week 6)

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Following the politics lecture

Found an article from one of my favourite publications, Vogue

Outlining the influence that politics has on fashion

Discussing 'power dressing' through the ages

Refreshing & interesting to see a positive spin on the effect of politics on fashion

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"THERE ARE DECADES where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen." The famous Lenin quote is acutely resonant in 2020, amid a global pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands and ongoing protests sparked by the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake. Borders are closed, millions are unemployed, and whole industries have been decimated. Meanwhile, the strangest and perhaps most consequential presidential election in American history is upon us.

What does any of this have to do with fashion?

Everything, it turns out. Fashion is a planet-spanning $2.5 trillion business that employed more than 1.8 million people in the United States alone before COVID-19 reached our shores. Its touch extends from the starry realm of the red carpet to sweatshops as far-flung as Bangladesh and as near as Los Angeles. By some estimates, the industry is responsible for as much as 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions. Fashion also conjures society's dreams, challenges its norms, and reflects back what it believes about itself. And yet the question persists: Can fashion be political? To which the proper reply must be: Wasn't it always? In the Middle Ages, sumptuary laws prohibited commoners from dressing above their station; during the French Revolution, sansculottes wore hardy trousers as a badge of working-class pride. Nearer our own era, the Black Panthers used clothing both to seize power and to resist it, adopting a uniform of leather jackets and berets to signify their deputization as a counter-police force-while in the "Greed is good" 1980s, power suits and pouf skirts sublimated Reaganite corporate triumphalism. There are countless examples of this kind of intertwining.

"Fashion functions as a mirror to our times, so it is inherently political," notes Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "It's been used to express patriotic, nationalistic, and propagandistic tendencies as well as complex issues related to class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality." What's radical today, Bolton goes on to point out, is the way social consciousness and environmental concerns are informing fashion: Designers worldwide, whether indie start-ups or internationally famed maisons, are incorporating politics at every level of their brands, from the fantasies spun on the runway down to the nuts and bolts of how collections are produced. These designers aren't just making clothes-alongside activists and organizers, they're making change. And that's a selling point.

"Every choice you make as a company will influence the world," says Marine Serre, one of the designers at the forefront of fashion's new wave. "What you make, how you make it, how you speak about what you've made-for me, everything is politics."

"I think people are getting it now: Politics isn't binary," says Virgil Abloh of Louis Vuitton and Off-White. "It's this system we're in and all the ways it manifests. There's the politics on your phone and the politics on your street. And, yeah, there's the politics of your clothes."

By "binary," Abloh is alluding to America's partisan divide, the polarization of Republican and Democrat, Fox News vs. MSNBC, that most people refer to when they talk politics. But as he notes, the partisan is only one element of the political, and "the politics of your clothes" today can mean everything from buying one of Off-White's i support young black businesses T-shirts-with proceeds this quarter going to the anti-gun violence organization Chicago CRED-to not buying much of anything at all out of a dedication to sustainability. Fashion politics may mean signing the #PayUp petition launched by the organization Remake in the wake of reports that brands were stiffing factories post-COVID, leaving already vulnerable garment workers in the lurch; it can mean wearing a black gown to the Golden Globes in support of Time's Up or dressing to affirm a genderqueer identity-all of which is to say: The politics of fashion are in the eye of the beholder. But they are there, acknowledged or not.

"I'm not about screaming an opinion, but obviously my work is engaged with conversations about race, about class, about justice," explains Samuel Ross, designer of British menswear label A-Cold-Wall*, a 2018 finalist for the prestigious LVMH Prize. "Through the look and feel of my clothes, I'm trying to capture an experience often overlooked by fashion." Ross points to a childhood spent in part on London council estates of brutalist structures of poured concrete; in transforming that experience into something aspirational, he's affirming the dignity of poor and working-class people living in tower blocks today.

Serre, meanwhile, has the climate on her mind. She dedicates at least 50 percent of her runway collection to upcycled clothes-creating a slick frock out of vintage Fair Isle sweaters sourced from the Netherlands, for example-and her current collection imagines new communities emerging, phoenix-like, from a burning world. It's a theme of hope and unity that's also reflected in Serre's crescent moon logo, made famous by its appearance in Beyoncé's Black Is King. "It's an ancient symbol-it crosses East and West; you see it in Arabic culture and in Greek. Anyone can recognize themselves in this logo-and you can appropriate it like I have, because it's totally free."

Serre's moon serves as a riposte to ethno-nationalism-if you choose to interpret it that way. The symbolism is ambiguous by design. Martine Rose's promising britain tee is more direct: Featuring a cartoon clown emerging from a circle of E.U.-flag stars, the shirt debuted as part of a spring 2020 collection Rose showed just as the U.K. was hurtling toward Brexit. "As I see it," Rose says, "fashion in the absence of opinion and argument is just...merch."

Maria Grazia Chiuri seems to agree. Seizing the reins at Dior in 2016, she opened her first show with a statement of intent, printing the title of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay "We Should All Be Feminists" on tees sent down the runway alongside looks that pointedly updated the aesthetic codes of a house built on the ur-femininity of founder Christian Dior's New Look. "Declaring my-and the maison's-wish to step away from the stereotype of women by integrating feminist ideas is a way of keeping Dior's heritage relevant," Chiuri explains. "At this stage, being feminist should be the default."

Feminism, pluralism, eco- and class-consciousness: Designers such as Ross, Rose, Serre, and Chiuri are joining in crucial debates. For Virgilda Romero Vasquez, however, the intersection of fashion and politics is a matter of life and death. A mother of four who began working in L.A. garment factories when she arrived from Guatemala 19 years ago-and who still makes only about $300 a week-Romero Vasquez was, on July 29, impatiently awaiting the result of the California Assembly Labor Committee's vote on SB-1399, a bill that would eliminate the piece-rate payment system that allows factories in the state to pay sewers well below minimum wage. Romero Vasquez was also recovering from symptoms related to COVID and going to work in a small, airless building where, she told me, it's often too hot to wear a mask. "We had 40 people working," she says, "and seven of us got the virus, but only six came back-the other passed away." (SB-1399 also includes provisions to make brands legally liable for poor conditions in the factories they've subcontracted to make their apparel. If the concern seems remote, Romero Vasquez may prompt you to reevaluate: The factory where she previously worked produced almost exclusively for a popular fast-fashion brand with celebrity ambassadors. Meanwhile, she describes the space as rat-infested and says it's common for the rodents to urinate and defecate on the clothes. "I don't know why people think they get clean things from a dirty place," she says.)

Issues of labor exploitation in the fashion supply chain-that of fast-fashion brands in particular-have languished in the shadow of glitzier conversations about what we wear and why. But just as coronavirus outbreaks in L.A. garment factories drove this summer's explosion of transmission throughout Southern California, the labor question eventually affects everything and everyone else in the industry. "How could it not?" asks Livia Firth, cofounder and creative director of the sustainability consultancy Eco-Age and a forceful advocate for a more ethical supply chain. "No matter what clothes you're wearing, someone made them. Do you know who? And how? The newest form of political fashion is to be able to tell that story."

Questions about labor are relevant whether you're asking if the pro-feminist T-shirt on a store-window mannequin was made by a woman in a sweatshop, or comparing a brand's pro-Black Lives Matter Instagram post with its record of diversity in hiring. Or if-as Chiuri did for Dior's cruise 2020 show-you answer the question by celebrating traditional artisanship, collaborating with Ivory Coast-based studio Uniwax to create expressive reinterpretations of toile de Jouy.

All of this is a necessary part of the budding movement for accountability-the raison d'être that unifies everything from eco-activist campaigns for transparency about climate impacts and waste to callouts about cultural appropriation (as when activist Céline Semaan challenged Serre on her use of Islamic imagery on burka-like face coverings) to initiatives like the 15 Percent Pledge, launched this summer by Brother Vellies founder Aurora James to commit retailers to upping their inventory from Black-owned businesses. Talk and empty gestures just won't cut it anymore. "Give a little money, post a black square on Instagram, then back to business as usual-it started to feel like a big PR push, as though the uprising was just a temporary blip," says stylist Law Roach of the corporate solidarity statements issued amid the Black Lives Matter protests in June. "That hurt," he adds. "That hurt me a lot."

Roach, who works with such stars as Zendaya and Celine Dion, says the demand for accountability extends to celebrities and influencers. "You can't just post a photo of yourself wearing a BLM T-shirt-people are onto that; they'll be up in your comments, like, What have you actually done for the movement-and who made that shirt, anyway?"

"Look-posting those selfies helps normalize previously radical concepts," says Apryl Williams, assistant professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. "I'm not dismissive of any of that, but I do worry that people overestimate its power. If you're not really engaged with the issues, all you're doing is performing."

The diffusion of politics into performance is, of course, an ever-present danger when fashion takes up a cause. Another is that politics itself becomes "fashionable" and thus subject to fashion's trend metabolism. "What happens when an issue becomes passé?" asks author and activist Naomi Klein, whose seminal 2000 book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies anticipates many of the conversations about accountability reemerging now. "Inevitably, that's what happens, because what fashion wants is novelty-and what movements need is time. " As Klein points out, the fight for workers' rights has been building for decades, advancing in tandem with the globalization of supply chains, and over all this time, the fundamental demand-the right to unionize-hasn't changed. "That's the game-changer," Klein says. "Workers are always their own best advocates, whether the issue is unpaid overtime or unsafe conditions. The trick," she adds, "is how do you force brands to uphold that right?"

ONE WAY to ensure that you can "tell the story" of your wardrobe, as Firth puts it, is to know who is making your clothes. A designer running an independent brand of modest size retains much more direct oversight over her operations than heads of mass-producing firms with innumerable subsidiaries and stockholders fixated on returns. She is able, as Rachel Comey proves, to align her business with her values.

A stalwart of the New York City fashion scene, Comey helped lead the way on age-, race-, and size-blind casting and has matter-of-factly endeavored to make her brand as sustainable as possible. When she wrote a detailed letter of support for Black Lives Matter this summer, one stunningly obvious point she made is that she gives her (diverse) staff paid time off to vote-and that other companies should too. "I've never thought about things like trying to reduce waste as political," she says. "It's more that I feel I have to be responsible-it's my name on the label, right?"

Though Comey's clothes and accessories are sold in more than 100 stores worldwide the label's expansion has been gradual, with Comey's ambitions hewing more to fostering customer loyalty within her artsy niche than to attaining fashion-superstar status-and many younger designers appear to be emulating her. Amid the summer protests, designers behind some of New York City's buzziest labels-Eckhaus Latta and Jonathan Cohen, to name two-joined Comey in pledging a portion of their proceeds to organizations supporting Black Lives Matter. Never mind the fact that, due to COVID, their own bottom lines had been shattered. (This isn't without precedent: During the 1990 recession, New York designers banded together for the three-day Seventh on Sale bazaar to raise money for the fight against AIDS.)

Other new brands have consciously structured their business to give back. Lidia May, a luxury leather-goods line based in Bangladesh, was cofounded by May Yang and Rasheed Khan with the explicit aim of "uplifting the local maker community," as Yang puts it, working with a Dhaka-based grassroots organization to train women in higher-wage skills like embroidery and hiring them to produce the filigree embellishments on the brand's handbags. (Full disclosure: I am on the Lidia May advisory board.) "We'd like to serve as a model other brands can copy," says Khan. "Most companies come to Dhaka for the cheap wages; what would happen if they started investing in this community instead?"

According to Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, director of the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights, this mindset is already trickling up to larger brands. One she cites is the French firm Decathlon, which makes long-term commitments to its suppliers and collaborates with them to develop business models that allow both brand and workers to prosper. "Savvy companies," says Baumann-Pauly, "see the writing on the wall: You'd better align your practices with what this young generation of consumers is going to consider legitimate."

The health of the planet is one concern weighing on those consumers' minds. In her 2019 book Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, Dana Thomas notes that in 2018, the average American shopper bought 68 garments-more than one item of clothing per week. It's a chicken-and-egg question whether companies have boosted production to meet consumers' apparently insatiable appetite for new things, or whether that appetite has been whetted by the vast increase in goods on offer (Zara alone produces about 450 million garments each year)-but the follow-up question is the same: What are we going to do with all this stuff?

Secondhand shopping is one answer. Gen Z'ers are flocking to apps like Depop that let them thrift from their peers' closets, and sources from a 2019 McKinsey report predict that the resale market a decade from now could be larger than that of fast fashion-a cheering prospect if you fret about the millions of tons of apparel dumped in landfills annually. Other answers include upcycling-retrieving fibers from fabrics to make new ones-and "regenerating," as Marine Serre terms her innovative method of re-crafting old garments and textiles.

Frankly, it feels a bit odd to be writing about the perils of fashion overproduction and overconsumption when, in the midst of COVID, orders have been canceled, stores are going under, and shoppers are hitting the brakes on spending. But at some point, the global fashion machine will start spinning again-and the industry will have to decide whether it needs to spin as fast and as furiously as it did. Many designers say no: Dries Van Noten, Erdem Moralioglu, and Tory Burch are among those who signed an "Open Letter to the Fashion Industry" in May that insisted on a collective slowdown, with fewer and smaller collections and clothes delivered in tune with the seasons for which they were produced.

For shoppers, this means fewer discounts and more saving up for beautiful clothes-a forgotten habit we might all relearn. And as designers reorient toward more purposeful pieces with a longer life cycle, expect to see high fashion continuing the process the streetwear revolution began, creatively reimagining staple items and dispensing with the idea that every new collection must erase the last. You can already see this approach on the Gucci runway, where Alessandro Michele evolves ideas and motifs over time-think of his irreverent takes on the GG logo or his continual romancing of the awkward-chic pantsuit, a look he promotes as gender-neutral. Novelty for novelty's sake is out; what's in is happy-making fashion intended for everyone, no matter size, race, or gender. "The task that fashion has," as Balenciaga's Demna Gvasalia put it recently, "is to bring excitement to the person wearing it. My upcoming seasons are full of light, even though we're in this deep hole of horrible things. Through the work we do we can talk about this hope-the light at the end of the tunnel." That it will soon seem par for the course to see boys traipsing down the catwalk with oh-so-cute Hello Kitty bags (as they did recently at Balenciaga) is part of a long-term process of reprioritization crystallized by the pandemic, as designers consider what matters-beauty, quality, authenticity-and jettison what does not. "We've got this moment to stop and reassess," notes Klein. "Let's use it."

THIRTY YEARS AGO, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama published an article titled "The End of History." Anticipating the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the Soviet-style communism that parried with Western capitalism for global dominion, Fukuyama argued that the great political debates had all been settled and that going forward, "politics" would be a matter of tinkering. Fukuyama's thinking was blinkered in many respects, but his analysis does help explain why, for the past 30 years, a lot of what fashion's been up to has consisted of looping through vintage ideas at an ever-increasing clip. If we all feel like everything has already been said and done, why even try to say or do something new? Marc Jacobs captured that zeitgeist in his grunge collection for Perry Ellis, shown in 1992 at the peak of post-Cold War exultation, with its thrift-shop aesthetics auguring a fashion epoch premised on reiteration and pastiche.

The exception to this rule is the creative spark lit by diversity, which makes perfect sense: When the world is complete-when there's nowhere left to go-the "shock of the new" is supplied by outsiders fighting their way in. One need look no further than the disruptive influence of gender nonconformity on fashion to witness this dynamic at work, but you can see it, too, in the gentler provocations of Olivier Rousteing. Nearing 10 years at the helm of Balmain, Rousteing has made it his project to expand the meaning of "Frenchness."

"Walk the streets of Paris, it's a huge mix-but you don't see that reflected in the image of la Parisienne," he says, referencing the stereotype of the white, well-to-do lady-about-town. "It's a closed aesthetic-it tells people, You don't belong," Rousteing goes on. "Do we want this old idea to still be going in another 50 years? Or do we want to say something new, which is what fashion is supposed to be about?"

In July, Rousteing marked the 75th anniversary of Balmain by showing his couture collection on a boat traveling along the Seine. The presentation included silhouettes from the maison archives-a retread that Rousteing positioned as a breakthrough. "I'm showing the public: Here I am, the first Black leader of one of the first French fashion houses. It was my protest."

Most of the designers and creatives interviewed for this story are Black, as is stylist Law Roach. Each of them authors their own version of fashion, and fashion politics, as does Pyer Moss's Kerby Jean-Raymond, who stunned the industry by opening his spring 2016 show with a 12-minute video about police brutality; Hood By Air visionary Shayne Oliver, whose recent comeback has been enthusiastically welcomed; Telfar Clemens, of White Castle-collaboration fame; multidisciplinary minimalist Grace Wales Bonner; Amaka Osakwe, founder of the Nigeria-based Maki Oh, whose soigné looks incorporating native techniques count Michelle Obama as a fan; Tyler Mitchell, the photographer and filmmaker who recently inked a deal with the creative agency UTA. Calls for greater diversity in fashion have intensified in the wake of the BLM protests; the point of this very abbreviated list is to show that, for the fashion industry, inclusion is not an obligation-it's an opportunity.

"More Black creators means more stories, more ideas," asserts Abloh, explaining why he's devoted a fair amount of time of late raising money for a scholarship fund that will send Black students to premier fashion schools. "As an industry, we've got to find ways to onboard people from the community-which is hard when internships don't pay and hiring is based a lot on who you know or who your family knows." (It's also hard when companies don't foster an inclusive work environment, Abloh might have added-an issue that another new initiative, the Black in Fashion Council, cofounded by publicist Sandrine Charles and Teen Vogue editor Lindsay Peoples Wagner, was launched to address.)

More diversity in the fashion industry is a prima facie good. But it's important to be clear-eyed about what it won't do, which is cure the sickness of the supply chain. For years, issues of economic justice here-narrowly defined as the right to consume-and the right for garment workers to earn a living wage have been set in competition with each other, as though insisting on the latter is tantamount to saying low-income Americans don't deserve stylish clothes. This is a false choice: America's poor and precarious don't need access to cheap, disposable goods-they need money. They're in the same quandary as the garment workers, as the economic fallout of the pandemic has laid bare. Where inequality is concerned, money is both the problem and the solution. The rest is noise.

Martine Rose believes that, thanks to COVID, we are now, suddenly, living with a future again. The end of history ended the moment the gears of the world sputtered to a stop-"creating a tear in the fabric of reality," as she puts it. "It seems like, after so many years of fiddling around the edges of the familiar, something genuinely new could come in." She points to movements that arose in prior moments of rupture, like Dada emerging from the ashes of World War I or hippie counterculture blazing defiance to the society that produced the war in Vietnam.

A-Cold-Wall*'s Ross is more cautious. "I think COVID has surfaced conversations that have been going on belowground," he suggests. "I don't believe that means we'll get a total social reset, but it has created space to ask questions. We can see the system now-and choose to evolve it in a direction that's more humane. Which makes it an exciting time to be a designer," he adds, "because you can help drive the shift."

That shift won't be the work of one election. It may not even be the work of one generation. But the work starts today, and a key part fashion can play is to use its genius for dream-creation to help people imagine what comes next. "Let's embrace change," Rousteing says. "It's how you make new history."

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The question persists: Can fashion be political? To which the proper reply must be: Wasn't it always?

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The importance of brands being transparent with their customers

89% of consumers want companies to act with integrity at all times (Adroll, 2020)

An interesting article regarding how important it is for Fashion retailers to be completely transparent with consumers

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For the conscious consumer, words like ethical and sustainable hold a lot of significance-and rightly so. But another term has been gaining traction in the past decade, and it's worth paying attention to: transparency. In other words, being as open and honest as possible about what's going on behind the scenes. Read on to discover what transparency in the fashion industry looks like, why it's important, and perhaps most importantly, whether it's enough.

The death of thousands of garment workers in the collapse of the Rana Plaza in 2013 sent shock waves through the fashion industry-and the entire world. People were outraged to learn that the fashion brands they love were sourcing from suppliers that did not protect their workers' safety, and worse that they didn't know where their clothes were made.

Since that day, a growing number of people have been pushing the fashion industry to do better for the planet, people, and animals. They're demanding that brands become more transparent as a stepping stone towards being more sustainable.

The idea is pretty simple: people want to make more ethical and sustainable choices when shopping, but to do that, they need to know exactly what's going on and what brands are doing. As consumers, you have the right to know how a brand impacts the issues you care about. That's where transparency in fashion comes in, and spearheading the movement is the non-for-profit organisation Fashion Revolution.

What does 'transparency in fashion' mean?

In fashion, transparency is the practice of openly sharing information about how, where, and by whom a product was made. Being transparent means publishing all information about every actor involved in the production process, from start to finish, from the fields to the store shelves. It allows customers to know exactly what they're buying, with details from every step of the production process.

For Carry Somers, founder of Fashion Revolution, it's important that companies publicly disclose information that is comprehensive, credible and backed by comparable data, such as targets, standards, certifications, Codes of Conduct.

Transparency is when companies know and share publicly #WhoMadeMyClothes-from who stitched them right through to who dyed the fabric and who farmed the cotton-under what conditions, and with what environmental impacts.
Carry Somers - founder of Fashion Revolution

When Good On You asks fashion brands to be more transparent, we want them to disclose more information about how they impact:

The Planet: what materials are used, in which proportions, how much waste is created, how do they take care of said waste, how is water used and treated?

People at all stages of the supply chain: who works for the brand, in what factories, under what conditions, are they safe, are they paid a living wage, how many hours do they work, do they have workers' rights?

Animals: are animal-derived materials used, how are they sourced, how does the brand control how animals are treated?

We believe everyone should have access to this information. As Carry Somers says, "It is not enough to disclose crucial supply chain information internally or selectively to certain stakeholders only." Brands should make information easily accessible to consumers and interested organisations like unions and advocacy groups, on their website and if relevant in their social media or campaigns.

Why does it matter?

The global health crisis has made the importance of transparency very clear: almost immediately after lockdowns started rolling out in March 2020, stories emerged of big fashion brands cancelling orders and leaving suppliers and their vulnerable workers high and dry. Brands should report this themselves, so they can be held accountable for their actions.

Consumers have the right to make the best purchase decisions for themselves, for the planet, and for its inhabitants. But making the right decisions is difficult when all the required information isn't available!

Consumers have the right to make the best purchase decisions for themselves, for the planet, and for its inhabitants.

Transparency allows shoppers to make better decisions. It also helps hold brands accountable: by knowing exactly what a company is doing or what targets it has set for itself, it is easier to keep track and demand more. Unions and civil society organisations can't do their job to make sure that workers are in a safe environment, that their rights are respected, and that the environment is protected if it's not clear where, how, and by whom clothes are produced. And by holding brands accountable, the whole industry is pushed to be and do better.

Transparency is a stepping stone towards a more ethical and sustainable fashion industry. Knowing and understanding how things work clears the path for improvements, innovations, and business-model changes that will radically affect how brands operate and impact the world.

From a brand's perspective, it's in their interest to be more transparent and disclose all relevant information: radical transparency is trending. McKinsey and Business of Fashion report that 52% of millennials always research background information before buying. Being transparent is a tool for storytelling, which in turn helps brands build and regain trust with their audience. It's a win-win!

The state of transparency in the fashion industry

Brands are aware of the rising tide of consumer interest, and many have jumped on the transparency and sustainability bandwagon, disclosing and sharing more information with their audience.

In last year's Fashion Transparency Index, Fashion Revolution ranked 250 of the world's largest fashion brands and retailers according to how much they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts. "The good news is that for the first time we saw a few brands scoring above 70%, and whilst the high street is leading the way on transparency, luxury brands are making significant progress. The overall average score among the 250 brands is 23%, up from 21% among the 200 brands in the 2019 Index," says Somers. However, when looking at the overall picture, Fashion Revolution found more than half of brands score 20% or less and some brands-both high street and luxury-disclose nothing at all.

According to Fashion Revolution founder Carry Somers, encouraging progress is being made on disclosing supplier lists, with 40% of brands analysed disclosing their manufacturers (up from 12.5% four years ago, and up from 35% in 2019). Somers highlights that "some of the most severe and exploitative working conditions and worst environmental damage happen deep within fashion supply chains where materials are grown and fabrics are made, as evidenced by recent revelations of forced labour of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region of China and reports of sexual abuse in textile factories across India," which is why shedding more light on where garments and fabrics are made is crucial.

"We are seeing brands begin to publish more about their policies and commitments, with a 52% average score in this section, which is encouraging progress, but there is still so much crucial information about the practices of the fashion industry that remains concealed, particularly when it comes to the tangible impact on the lives of workers in the supply chain and on the environment," says Somers. But brands are not disclosing enough details about how their policies are put into practice or how labour costs are ring-fenced in price negotiations. What's more, "only 2% of brands are publishing a time-bound, measurable roadmap or strategy for how they will achieve a living wage for all workers across their supply chains and just 2% publish data on the percentage above the minimum wage rate workers are paid in their supply chains." Payment of a living wage is a pressing issue, as many workers cannot afford basic life necessities on a minimum wage.

When it comes to materials, brands are still not fully transparent, especially with the new issues like those around microplastics. "Considering the urgency of the plastic pollution issue, I would hope to see real action from the industry. But just 20% of brands explain what they are doing to reduce the shedding of microfibres from their clothing," says Somers.

So it's evident that transparency is not a panacea. But transparency is the first step towards being more ethical and sustainable-it helps hold brands accountable. As Carry Somers says, the whole fashion industry needs a radical paradigm shift and the way that we produce and consume clothes needs to be transformed.

The whole fashion industry needs a radical paradigm shift and the way that we produce and consume clothes needs to be transformed.
Carry Somers - founder of Fashion Revolution

Business models need to change, structures need to change, systems need to change. While transparency alone isn't the solution, it helps brands and consumers understand what's going on and how it might be changed.

How to learn which brands are transparent

Many people want to make more ethical and sustainable choices when shopping. But it's often too hard to know the impact of brands on all the things consumers care about. There are scores of important sustainability issues, tens of thousands of fashion brands, and hundreds of thousands of products on the market: but there isn't enough time for consumers to do in-depth research on their purchases. And for most of us, we wouldn't really be sure where to start!

Luckily there are many tools out there that can help you learn more about whether your favourite brands are transparent.

Fashion Revolution's Fashion Transparency Index is one: The index incentivises major brands to disclose more information about their policies, practices, and supply chain. Last year, the FTI reported on 250 of the world's largest fashion brands. The FTI ranks brands according to how much they disclose about their social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts.

Good On You also helps you learn which brands are transparent. Our ratings consider information published by brands as well as the industry's leading indices, certifications, and standards. And when a brand does not publish sufficient information, we make sure it is reflected in our rating so that it's easier for you to know whether a brand is being transparent. We specifically mark brands with a low score if they do not publicly report on their sustainability actions.

What can consumers do?

Consumers and citizens have so much power to change the fashion industry for the better. And this power resides in the ability to choose: better brands, better materials, better garments, better working conditions, better pay.

Good On You makes it easy for you to make these better choices. We've done the work of reading between the seams for you, and we've pulled all the information together to give each brand an easy-to-understand score, from 1 (We Avoid) to 5 (Great). That way you can know the impact of your favourite brands on the issues you care about, and discover the very best fashion brands from around the world using our directory or app.

"We can all play a part in bringing about change. We can choose our materials wisely, buy clothes we love, that we will wear for years, learn how to care for our clothes to make them last longer, and to wash on short cycles and low temperatures to reduce microfibre shedding," Carry Somers says.

If we all come together and speak up about the issues in the industry and what needs to change, we can radically transform the fashion industry.

And what better time to speak up and ask questions about transparency in the fashion industry than now? This week (19-25 April) is Fashion Revolution Week, the time to hold brands accountable and spread the word about a more sustainable and ethical industry. Want to get involved? Check out Fashion Revolution's Guide for Citizens.

This year Fashion Revolution is calling upon citizens everywhere to demand greater transparency from brands by asking #WhoMadeMyFabric. You can also ask #WhoMadeMyClothes or #WhatsInMyClothes, and help shed light on the environmental and social issues in the industry.

We urge you to be curious ( there are many events you can attend during Fashion Revolution Week), do your research, ask questions, and speak up. Together we'll push the fashion industry to be more transparent, sustainable, and fair.

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The Importance of Transparency in the Fashion Industry - Good On You

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Discover what transparency in the fashion industry looks like, why it's important, and whether it's enough.

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Are brands just being inclusive or diverse in order to tick a box? Or do they actually care about being inclusive?

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In recent years, there have been a multitude of questions around how businesses approach the concept of diversity. There has been a surge in efforts to try and recreate a more diverse world in adverts. At its heart, this is a good thing: brands we recognize, day-in-day out, affirm sexualities and gender differences by including them in day-to-day situations. It's a powerful tool of 'normalisation' - making diversity 'every-day' but without making it mundane.
The crux of the issue: stereotypes
But as ever, how it's done makes a huge impact. More than a few advertisers have made massive blunders on this front e.g. we all remember Protein World's 'Are you beach ready?'

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Often these come from a desire to simply 'look tolerant' without putting all the necessary research and thought in. But equally, and less obviously, this stems from looking at minorities through the eyes of the 'majority'. Where data is involved, this can lead us to 'enhance' demographic data with the assumptions we have from daily life. All too often, this essentially means we end up stereotyping right from the word go - at the data level - and taking these stereotypes on into the creatives we produce - whether it's mums with nappies, and cleaning products, or Dads with beer and motor oil. We take raw data and create a narrative around it which matches our own perception of the world - when in fact there's no evidence for it.
Diversity isn't an exercise in ticking boxes
All this is a result of a wider view on diversity. It's become an exercise in ticking boxes, which has taken the real soul and meaning out of inclusivity. It's simply being diverse for the sake of it. In being inclusive, we ought to make the industry - and everything that's part of it -represent the world as it is. That means, exactly as the data shows it, there's no space for our assumptions on gender and sexuality. Our data should be taken for what it is, and our creatives should affirm to communities that we recognise they exist not just in kitschy sepia-toned ads but in the real world - that we value them and the contribution they make to our society, and not just as tokens in an ad to make brands look good and feel better.

Often, this means involving the very people you're attempting to represent. Just last week, we marked the Stonewall riots at pride, a seminal event in gay history and culture stretching back thousands of years. LGBTQ+ culture is a heritage that continues to play a role in the day-to-day reality of gay people. It's wide-reaching, rich, diverse, and yet full of oppression, and struggle. Every representation needs to take this into account. You can empathise, but you can never walk in someone else's shoes, and this makes 'representation' a hard task. We've seen brands like Coca Cola successfully engage with this kind of representation this summer with their campaign "This Coke is a Fanta", busting a discriminatory expression which has tormented gay people in Brazil for years. Clearly, it's possible for brands to engage with diversity messages in the right way, but it does take effort, time and more than ticking boxes.
Demo is dead
What this means for brands is, when you approach your creatives or the audience you may think your target, be mindful that your view is just the tip of the iceberg. Do more with your data. Don't presume you know someone because you have their base demographics. You can't condense people into a stereotype. There's a whole world of behaviours, thoughts, opinions, preferences, mindsets which demographics simply don't cover. Whether people tend to shop, go out with friends or are heavy gym-goers, location and behavioural data can be far superior than categories people get slotted into demographically. Where people go reveals their habits and what they're likely to enjoy the most, so don't miss out on these insights. And when it comes to your creatives, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons - and that you really think it through. Be mindful that many in the industry have become over reliant on demographics when targeting audiences, which in turn fails to reflect the eclectic nature of society in the way we deliver ads.
Tom Barbour is the group head of International at Blis
// Featured in this article

Blis is the leading privacy-first, location-powered programmatic advertising partner. We deliver accurate targeting at scale without reliance on personal data, helping the world's largest brands and media agencies drive key business outcomes through personalised and high-performing digital advertising.

Find out more

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Why an obsession for tick-box diversity has taken the soul out of inclusivity

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In recent years, there have been a multitude of questions around how businesses approach the concept of diversity. There has been a surge in efforts to try and recreate a more diverse world in adverts. At its heart, this is a good thing: brands we recognize, day-in-day out, affirm sexualities and gender differences by including them in day-to-day situations.

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Lounge Underwear are known for being a super inclusive retailer and show time and time again that they genuinely are inclusive with their models, marketing, social medias and even their website

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The market for plus-size fashion is worth nearly $30 billion in the US alone (BOF, 2021)

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Ashley Graham (model) has been a huge part of the movement with one of her peaks being the cover of Sports Illustrated

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Is Fashion Really Becoming More Inclusive?

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Is Fashion Really Becoming More Inclusive?

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A really interesting report discussing the growth of inclusive fashion

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the self love issue

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For our February digital issue we wanted to show that beauty can not be defined by one viewpoint or one face. The 'Self Love' issue features 11 cover stars: Sophia Hadjipanteli, Munroe Bergdorf, Harnaam Kaur, Chidera Eggerue, Stephanie Yeboah, Jeyza Gary, Katie Piper, Michelle Elman, Amber Jean Rowan, Nabela Noor and Hani Sidow. We asked them to photograph these covers themselves, in the way they want to be perceived. These women refuse to accept the outdated notions of beauty - created by a Western gaze - or be defined by them. Now we want you to join the conversation too by creating your own GLAMOUR cover. To get involved, head to your Instagram stories and search 'GLAMOUR' in gifs to add our logo to your cover shot. For a step-by-step, head to our insta stories now....
Sophia Hadjipanteli
Sophia Hadjipanteli, 23, officially has the most talked-about eyebrows in the world. They even have a name (it's Veronika, FYI).
Recognised for her dark black unibrow, the model burst onto the scene last year and instantly shook up the conversation around traditional beauty standards with her #UnibrowMovement - even having a showdown with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. "It's weird, I'm feeling it, I'm feeling the monobrow," the controversial TV presenter admitted.

Crediting her Cypriot roots for her bushy brows, London-based Sophia is among the wave of new voices encouraging women to accept their body hair. However, despite her 412k-strong Instagram following, she continuously faces the wrath of trolls who have targeted her unconventional grooming choices.

Here, Sophia discusses the power she has found in defining her own standard of beauty, and shares why her unibrow makes her feel more beautiful than ever before. Long live the bushy brow revolution...

Photographs: Daniel Viegas Filipe; @difanation; difanation.com Hair & makeup: Erin Grace Wheatland using Le Sourcil; @eringrace.makeup; eringracemakeup.com

Munroe Bergdorf
At 24, Munroe Bergdorf underwent a gender transition after a lifetime of feeling conflicted about her body. Since then, the model and activist of white English and black Jamaican heritage has tirelessly campaigned for transgender rights and progressed the conversation around gender, identity and beauty.
It's a timely subject, which she explored in the conversation-changing Channel 4 documentary What Makes A Woman? in 2018. "We're a super-small section of society but that doesn't mean our rights aren't valid or necessary," she revealed during the documentary.

Fearless, passionate and determined, Munroe, 32, opens up to GLAMOUR about the lack of inclusivity in the beauty industry for trans women and why identifying as a woman means more than putting on a face of makeup...

Image credits: Photographs: Indrek Galetin Stylist: Taff Williamson Make-up: Bianca Spencer Hair: Mikai McDermott Photo equipment: Teamwork Digital
With thanks to Shoreditch Studios

Harnaam Kaur

If there's one individual who has completely flipped beauty standards on their head it's Harnaam Kaur, who, at the age of 16, became the youngest woman in the world to have a full beard. Having grown up with polycystic ovary syndrome that led to a growth of facial hair, Harnaam defied bullies and committed to embracing her natural appearance.

This bold move has led to a phenomenally successful career as a model, motivational speaker and body-positivity advocate. She has appeared in GLAMOUR and Porter magazine, starred in a Channel 5 documentary and has done an empowering TEDx Talk about embracing beauty, whatever form it may come in. It's an impressive roster of achievements, but Harnaam is only just getting started.

The trailblazer reveals her experience of death threats, and tells us why she won't let the haters get in the way of her 'no bullshit' beauty rules...

Photographs: Nikita Bantey

Chidera Eggerue
Chidera Eggerue, also known as The Slumflower, became an overnight internet sensation when she kickstarted the #SaggyBoobsMatter campaign after years of lamenting the shape and size of her boobs. With an engaged following of 270k on Instagram, the 25-year-old south Londoner of British-Nigerian heritage launched her fashion blog as an antidote to "mainly white and middle-class" replicas.
If Chidera wasn't busy enough, she is now adding another string to her bow by teaching millennials how to reclaim their dating life in her new book, How To Get Over A Boy.

As someone who rarely holds back, Chidera discusses the importance of challenging male conceptions of beauty and why she's finally growing out her bush...

Stephanie Yeboah
Stephanie Yeboah, 30, is a woman on a mission. Since starting her blog Nerd About Town in 2008, the London-based plus-sized model, writer and public speaker has saught to tear down Westernised standards of beauty. With over a decade's experience, Stephanie has become one of the most prominent voices of the body-confidence movement and her debut book, Fattily Ever After: The Fat, Black Girls' Guide to Living Life Unapologetically, is set for release later this year.
From negative comments about her weight to fat fetishes, Stephanie tells GLAMOUR why she's sticking two fingers up at society's outdated attitude to bodies...

Jeyza Gary
Jeyza Gary from Fayetteville, North Carolina, was born with rare skin disorder lamellar ichthyosis, which causes her skin to shed every two weeks. Rather than allowing it to define her, Jeyza has taken the condition in her stride and formed a successful career as the first ichthyosis model. She has appeared in Vogue Italia and in January this year, secured a high-profile campaign with Target Swimwear.
While the 21-year-old rightly states, "you will not catch me apologising for the way I was born," confidence in her skin hasn't always been easy, as she tells GLAMOUR...

Photographs: Sophie Kietzmann Photography; @sophiekietzmann Styling: Haile Lidow; @hailelidow @lidowarchive
Special thanks to Susanne Morris; @suz11morris

Katie Piper

In 2008, Katie Piper was attacked with acid by her ex-boyfriend - an event that would change her life in more ways than she could imagine. When she first woke up from a coma after the assault, she thought she "couldn't live with it, and planned to commit suicide". But Katie later decided that she would not let her injuries define her.

While many in her position would understandably shy away from the media, London-based Katie used her platform to turn a traumatic experience into a positive one by helping other burns victims. The 36-year-old - now a mother to two daughters - founded the Katie Piper Foundation to help burns survivors in 2009.

Katie has also become the best-selling author of Beautiful Ever After and created documentaries ([i]Face To Face[/I] and Katie: My Beautiful Face) to raise awareness about the victims of acid attacks.

Brave, inspiring and fearless, Katie speaks to GLAMOUR about pushing the boundaries of beauty and why beauty is not defined by what's on the outside...

Michelle Elman

Michelle Elman, AKA @scarrednotscared, is an accredited body confidence coach who survived a brain tumour, punctured intestine, obstructed bowel and a cyst on her brain all before the age of 20. But Michelle, who is originally from Hong Kong and now lives in London, refuses to be defined by her setbacks and is now making waves on the internet by encouraging women to accept their flaws.

Michelle's TEDx Talk Have You Hated Your Body Enough Today? has been viewed over 50,000 times and she has written a memoir, Am I Ugly? about her traumatic childhood experiences that left her scared, physically and mentally. Michelle also hosts the Let Me Talk podcast with influencer Amalie Lee where they discuss "everything from dating to diet culture, sex to spirituality," and has written for publications including Stylist, Grazia and Huffington Post.

Here, the body-positivity activist opens up about surviving trauma, growing up mixed race and plus-sized, and why beauty will always be meaningless to her...

Photographs & styling: Terri Waters

Amber Jean Rowan

Model and actress Amber Jean Rowan was only 15 when she developed alopecia. By 16, she was entirely bald. While she initially started wearing wigs, Amber later realised there was an untapped beauty in her baldness.

Dublin-born Amber launched Hair Free, an online platform that provides help and support to others suffering with alopecia. Since then, she has shared her story on the cover of Irish Tatler and appeared on The Late Late Show in Ireland.

Here, Amber, 26, shares her thoughts on self-doubt, how empowering stepping out without a wig was and society's outdated hair standards...

Nabela Noor
Plus-sized, Muslim and Bangladeshi-American, Nabela describes herself as a 'rebellion'. Regularly powerfully posing with her stomach and stretch marks on show across social media, she has amassed a 1.3 million-strong Instagram following for promoting diversity and challenging dated standards of beauty.
Nabela, 28, runs her own lifestyle brand Zeba and has spoken at the United Nations on inequality, migration and refugees. "Years ago, I thought my dream of working for the UN was crushed becuse I couldn't afford to go to American university. I felt defeated. Fast forward to today, I'm using my platform and speaking at the United Nations for the second time this year," she wrote on Twitter shortly afterwards.

Nabela, who is originally from New York and now lives in Pennsylvania, was also the inspiration behind GLAMOUR's #BlendOutBullying campaign which saught to stamp out hate online. In the viral video, Nabela wrote the words people had called her on her face and literally blended them out with makeup, then replacing them with empowering, positive words.

Maintaining her empowering stance, Nabela talks about growing up without role models, dealing with death threats and why beauty should never be defined by size...

Photographs: Brady Pappas; @bradypappas

Hani Sidow
Makeup guru and blogger Hani Sidow, known to her 135K Instagram followers as @hanihanss, quickly caught attention when she set up a fashion and beauty blog in 2015 as part of her advertising and public relations university degree.
In an attempt to become what she couldn't see online - "fashion and beauty brands usually featured one standard of beauty (lighter features, straight hair and slim)" - Hani has become one of the most respected Muslim beauty bloggers. Her popularity has led to her releasing her debut makeup manual, Insta-Glam, last year, which advises readers on how to create Instagrammable beauty looks.

Born in Somalia, but now based in London, Hani spoke to GLAMOUR about prejudice, proving herself and coping with social-media stardom...

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The new faces of beauty: Meet the 11 inspirational cover stars of GLAMOUR's self-love issue

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For our February digital issue we wanted to show that beauty can not be defined by one viewpoint or one face. The 'Self Love' issue features 11 cover stars: Sophia Hadjipanteli, Munroe Bergdorf, Harnaam Kaur, Chidera Eggerue, Stephanie Yeboah, Jeyza Gary, Katie Piper, Michelle Elman, Amber Jean Rowan, Nabela Noor and Hani Sidow.

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Is the term 'body positivity' thrown around too much?

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Erm, #BodyPositivity: we have a bit of a problem. No one trusts you anymore. You used to mean something to millions of real women; you used to be a breath of fresh air in a thick Instafog of thin, filtered and cartoon-stretched bodies with overtuned washboard abs, mannequin-smooth tanned thigh and lion's mane blow-dries.

You were once a gentle, empowering movement for diversity and inclusion, to show that 'normal' could be inspiring and influential too. You weren't just about clothes size: you stood up for the invisible bodies that mainstream media hid away, for prevalent disabilities and disfigurement, for skin disorders and thinning hair. You stood for skin tone minorities, stretch marks, post-pregnancy tummies, flat chests, acne scarring, birthmarks, cellulite... and for invisible chronic illnesses and mental struggles. All the things women have been bullied into thinking are subnormal, but seeing them out in the open on screen gave them crucial sisterhood #bodypositive support.

And then you sold out.

Somewhere along the timeline, you were kidnapped by marketing teams, twisted into a hysterical gimmick and focused predominantly on "plus-size" women.

I know this to be true because it's a big flashing neon arrow following me and my size 22 body around. Why me? Why specifically a fat girl? Women of all sizes, heights, shapes, abilities and races have their own personal body battles and might welcome some kind affirmations too. But you've gone and singled us big girls out, making us the fat-friend that skinny social media needs to feel better about itself.

Charli Howard shares 10 Instagrammers who'll make you feel damn good about yourself

Well, I'm over it. I'm over being cattle-stamped with this fake hashtag that pretends to be helpful, when it is basically a strict instruction to be/think/feel/look happy in order fit into a visually pleasing society. This newly mangled 'BoPo' is the subliminal equivalent of a van-driving builder hollering 'Cheer up love it might never happen!' down the street. Like actually fuck off. Being told to be #BodyPositive when you're a fat person is invasive, occasionally intimidating, and assumes we are all negative misery-guts.

It directly insinuates that our emotions are wrong and if we just cheered up we'd be thin and confident and love ourselves. Newsflash: I'm a grown up, I can decide on my own whether I want to like or loathe myself. I'd prefer to scroll and shop without the constant reminders that I should analyse myself and delve into the mental shitstorm of coping with a fat body. I'm really good at that already, thank you.

I've gone into this more deeply in the new SS19 print issue of GLAMOUR, where I essentially call bullshit on #BodyPositivity. When I wrote the piece I wondered whether anyone would agree but, wow, the team were blown away by the number of writers who backed this feeling. Our honest opinions are in the magazine, and you can read model Charli Howard's brilliant and enlightening piece on the backlash of Body Positivity, too.

And the backlash really is happening. It began when mass fashion brands brutalised the message of Body Positivity and made it into a stunt to promote extended size ranges, plastering the slogan all over their social platforms and stores in a frenzied attempt to make larger women feel included. But it turned out they weren't following through. I think the best way to explain this is with an example; I hesitated to use this particular one because I don't want to compromise GLAMOUR's commercial relationship with this brand, but sod it, it's a masterclass in double standards and misappropriation, and the reason why #BodyPositive is so #CrazyNegative. So, Oasis, I'm calling you out.

I walked into your huge, double-fronted, two-story shop on Oxford Circus recently, because I heard you'd launched a plus size range. Curious to see what I could spend my paycheque on, I searched around but couldn't see anything above a size 16. When I asked where the 'curve' section was, the store manager told me in these exact words "it's all online as a body-positive trial to see if it sells, and there isn't room on the shop floor for it anyway" (LOL the irony). In fact I think I did literally laugh out loud: is inclusivity a 'trial'? Is this what they call fat-shaming? I'm not sure; but I am sure I was being told that me and my wide hips and big bum and chunky arms are not welcome through these doors, and to disappear into a hidden corner of invisible online shame where I can't ruin the skinny, cool, perfect aesthetic of their shop floor. And the 'Curve' range online? There are four pairs of trousers. Oasis: you are all fart no shit. How completely backwards. Abusing an emotional movement for the sake of a marketing microtrend is the reason #BodyPositivity is having this backlash.

'Just how positive IS the body positivity movement?', asks Charli Howard as she reveals she's been slammed for supporting it

But all it not lost. We should be thanking Oasis and their sanctimonious endeavor: with all backlashes tends to come a calming antidote, a sensible solution that negates this defrauded frenzy. It's called #BodyNeutral and it's the rational outlook that I'm craving for. It means a global silencing of the hysterical messages being shouted at fat women, and a progressive new platform for all real bodies to partake in society unconditionally.

Crucially, it is not specific to size, BMI, 'plus' or 'curve', but about bringing an authentic, interesting and enlightening spectrum of humans onto our radars, as #BodyPositive originally intended. Because seeing myriad beauty in all its glorious, complicated, awkward, silently chronic, visibly marked, big, small, imperfect, perfect, abled and disabled array is true power and positivity to all.

I guess it's the subliminal equivalent of the van-driver winding up his window, focusing on his road ahead without hassling anyone. For womens' sense of self and identity, it is quietly insinuating (not instructing) that what you think might be different or wrong or unacceptable is actually completely fine and normal, and desperately needed to rebalance the social media status quo and bring it back to neutral. For brands, it looks like any other ad campaign or post displaying diversity and normality, but following through with consistency - not just once every four grid-lines.

And, ultimately, it's about eliminating #BodyPositive, #BodyPositivity and #BoPo from our cyber vocabulary for two reasons. By removing this calculating gimmick it stops women like me being singled out for their size as a saviour to society's uncomfortable lack of diversity. There is more to women than our weight and it's time we had a conduit to showcase this, so that we can stand on unbiased ground to simply be accepted as humans, not categories or trends or pity-parties. And secondly, women don't need to be told how to behave, be, feel or display themselves, even if it's masqueraded as a cheerleading slogan.

So let's allow all our bodies to be unconditionally welcomed with #BodyNeutral. It's where I'll be searching for inspiration and empowerment. Will you?
Read Alice's full feature in GLAMOUR's SS19 issue, on newsstands now.

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This is why 'body positive' can sod off and let 'body neutral' make us feel truly empowered

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Erm, #BodyPositivity: we have a bit of a problem. No one trusts you anymore. You used to mean something to millions of real women; you used to be a breath of fresh air in a thick Instafog of thin, filtered and cartoon-stretched bodies with overtuned washboard abs, mannequin-smooth tanned thigh and lion's mane blow-dries.

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Fun, colourful, female-focused publication

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Founded by Rihanna

Savage X Fenty

Fenty Skin & Fenty Beauty

All inclusive 1000000%

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By Tricia McKinnon

There aren't many brands that have done a better job with diversity and inclusion than Rihanna's Fenty brand. Whether it's Savage X Fenty or Fenty Skin or Fenty Beauty she has done what many retailers have struggled to do, make products that appeal to everyone. Her focus on inclusivity is striking a cord with consumers because it's authentic.

From using plus sized models to creating gender neutral products a wide range of consumers feel like the brand truly understands their wants and needs. "We don't believe in division. We do not believe in excluding anyone," says Rihanna. "That's been our message from day one and it's not going to change now because everyone is having that realization."

Rihanna's product lines are hugely successfull and in many ways she is showing other brands how to properly cater to a diverse society. Take a look at how Fenty is winning over consumers by catering to their needs in four critical areas.

1. Sizes. As anyone who has struggled to find clothing that fits knows there aren't too many retailers that get a passing grade for selling clothing made for all. In the United States 70% of the population wears a size 14 or higher yet less than 20% of clothing made is within that size range.

When Rihanna launched her lingerie brand Savage X Fenty in 2018 it was inclusive from the very beginning. Her collection features bras in sizes ranging from A cups all the way to H cups with band sizes ranging from 30 to 46 and XS to 4X in underwear. "When I imagine something, I imagine everyone I know and love being a part of it. I want to make stuff I can see on the people I know, and they come in all different shapes, sizes, races, and religions," says Rihanna speaking about her Savage X Fenty brand. "I didn't think it would be such a talking point after the fact; the only thing I could think about was including everyone."

Savage X Fenty's size range is not lip service, the brand's fashion shows are also a tribute to diversity featuring plus sized, older and pregnant models as well as models with disabilities. In contrast in 2020 Victoria's Secret launched a new swimwear collection in an attempt to silence critics who say, among many things, that the brand does not cater to a wide enough audience. The swimwear collection featured plus sized models Paloma Elsesser and Jill Kortleve, but onlookers quickly noticed that the largest size in the collection was an XL, far below the size millions of women wear. "Ideals are changing, and people want diversity and representation, ethnically and racially, but also in terms of shape and body type. For retailers to not adapt or evolve can be a fatal flaw," says Kalinda Ukanwa, a marketing professor at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Retailers that pay lip service to diversity and inclusion requirements by either only offering a few styles in extended sizes or have just a couple of plus size models are going to struggle to stay relevant. At the beginning of 2020 Target launched a new activewear brand called All in Motion. The line passed $1 billion in sales after only about a year in market despite its short tenure. Merchandise within the All in Motion line is made from sustainable materials and has an inclusive size range, XS-4X for women, S-3X for men and XS-XXL for kids.

All in Motion's success is quite exceptional since the brand thrived during the pandemic. It was also a success even though the clothing category as a whole in the United States was down 28.5% in the first eleven months of 2020. Focusing on a hot category like activewear surely gave the brand a boost but since the line has inclusive sizes it meant that the majority of Americans could purchase it. The clothing sector has been in a structural decline for some time, could part of the reason be that people have gotten tired of not being able to find clothing that fits?

Savage X Fenty generated an estimated $150 million in revenue in 2020 and is now valued at an estimated $3 billion. Rihanna has also raised $310 million for Savage X Fenty to-date. When brands are looking at their strategic plans trying to figure out how to lift sales if they aren't thinking about inclusive sizing in an authentic way they are leaving money on the table.

2. Skin tone. Fenty Beauty was named Time magazine's Best Invention of 2017. Speaking about the brand Time magazine said: "Fenty's unabashed celebration of inclusivity in their makeup campaigns put an unprecedented spotlight on the need for diverse beauty products." As many people know, Fenty Beauty launched with 40 shades of foundation. But Fenty Beauty was not the first brand to offer 40 shades of foundation. For example, Make Up For Ever even stated, in an Instagram post after the launch of Fenty Beauty: "40 shades is nothing new to us." The bigger question is how did Rihanna manage to disrupt when others failed to barely innovate?

Competitor beauty brands with a diverse range of shades did not make inclusive marketing a central part of their business model. Rihanna from the beginning wanted to serve everyone. Not just dark-skinned consumers but everyone. Speaking about her line of foundation Rihanna said: "there needs to be something for a dark-skinned girl; there needs to be something for a really pale girl; there needs to be something in-between." One key difference is in how Rihanna marketed Fenty Beauty which Time magazine noted as being part of the genius behind the success of the brand. Fenty Beauty uses models from many ethnicities allowing the brand to become known as "the new generation of beauty". Rihanna focuses on all women and now all women want her products. Within Fenty Beauty's first 15 months in business it made $570 million in revenue.

In 2021 Sephora released a study it completed on racial bias. It found that 40% of its customers believe they are treated differently because of their race or complexion. This behaviour causes "permanent, economic consequences for a retailer," says Sephora. Imagine if close to half of your consumers feel they are treated in a less than optimal way? How much is that impacting the bottom line? By not treating everyone equally retailers are missing out on the very dollars they need to succeed.

By 2045 today's minority populations in the United States will be the majority. This trend has already started to materialize. Non-White and Hispanic Americans are now the majority among those under the age of 16.

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How Rihanna's Fenty Brand is Leading in Diversity & Inclusion

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Rihanna's product lines are hugely successful and in many she is showing other brands how to properly cater to a diverse society.

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Oh Polly came under fire in 2019 making a separate Instagram account for plus-sized models entitled 'ohpollyinclusive'

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Oh Polly sorry for separate plus-sized Instagram account

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Fashion brand Oh Polly had created a separate account for larger models, but has since deleted it.

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Interestingly, many brands create separate social media profiles for larger sized women - but why?

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Despite being called one of the more inclusive retailers, ASOS have a separate Instagram profile for plus sized

Is this being inclusive??

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Love Island 2021 came under fire after stating that it was going to be the 'most diverse cast ever' however when it hit the screens, it was very much the opposite!

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Love Island 2021 has come under fire on social media after revealing its line-up.

Fife's Shannon Singh has been confirmed as heading to the island, along with fashion blogger Kaz Kamwi and PE teacher Hugo Hammond, Love Island's first disabled contestant.

The popular dating show promised their "most diverse cast" after being slammed previously for having a line up that was 'too white' with unrealistic body expectations.

READ MORE: Love Island 2021: Scottish model Shannon Singh among those confirmed new series

Earlier this year, ITV commissioner Amanda Stavri said told Radio Times: "The line-up will be announced within time and it goes without saying that we want to encourage greater inclusivity and diversity."

However when questioned about LGTBQ+ contestants she responded: "In terms of gay Islanders, I think the main challenge is regarding the format of Love Island," she explained.

"There's a sort of logistical difficulty, because although Islanders don't have to be 100 percent straight, the format must sort of give [the] Islanders an equal choice when coupling up."

This quickly gathered a response on Twitter from members of the LGTBQ+ community feeling left out and branded it as "disappointing."

The anticipated cast announcement could have redeemed them as many expected to see more of an inclusive line up.

Love Island teased the fans by announcing the cast members one by one on Twitter and Instagram.

However, many fans took to Twitter to express their outrage as they felt their expectations to see a truly diverse cast have not been met.

One said: "You'd think Love Island would know the definition of diversity and inclusivity by now."

"I only see thin, fit people and a couple of black people and they want to call this sh** diversity! It's shameful!" Another angry fan cried.

"Producers you really did not try at all!!!! Really this is the cast! No diversity, no change in requirements and same old shallow cr*p."

"Yet another year of love island contestants that look similar to all the other years contestants. When is this show going to be diverse," a fourth questioned.

A spokesperson for Love Island told the MailOnline: "As a broadcaster, ITV celebrates diversity of every sort across our range of programmes in our schedule and across our channels.

"In terms of casting for Love Island, the only stipulation to applicants is they must be over 18, single and looking for love.

"This year's Love Islanders come from a diverse range of backgrounds with a mix of personalities and have a healthy BMI."

More Islanders are expected to be announced later on as it is often the case there is are surprise entries to shake things up for the loved up contestants in the villa.

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Love Island 2021 faces backlash after announcing 'most diverse cast ever'

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Love Island 2021 has come under fire on social media after revealing its line-up. Fife's Shannon Singh has been confirmed as heading to the island, along with fashion blogger Kaz Kamwi and PE teacher Hugo Hammond, Love Island's first disabled contestant.

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Love Island claims to be diverse, yet the shows biggest sponsor this year is ISAWITFIRST which is not size-inclusive at all

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The current Love Island, and previous seasons actively promotes an unrealistic standard of bodies: both male and female!

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I would love to be hired as Love Island's head of diversity because I too love doing absolutely nothing". Ouch. This was one of the many Twitter takes that have been proliferating online since ITV's Love Island revealed its first batch of Islanders this week. A whopping 4.8 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of Love Island in January last year, and many will no doubt tune in to the new series next Monday.

Despite promising more body diversity on the show, we're once again being faced with six women who could be cardboard cutouts of each other. Tall, slim, gorgeous flowing hair, and legs that stretch on for days. If you squint this line up could be that of any of the previous years. "Bikini-body ready", "Instagram-worthy" singles who fit perfectly into the rather restrictive box that society deems to be beautiful.

The body positivity movement has made strides in the UK in recent years, and it seems that Love Island hasn't got the memo. But while I absolutely hear the calls for more body diversity on the show, simply sticking one plus-size person in the villa could do more harm than good. Realistically, how do you think someone outside of the normative beauty standard would fare on the show? And why would anyone put themselves through that on national television? We have seen how cruel the men on the show (and on social media) can be to the female contestants already.

It could be that Love Island does attempt to cast different body types and people say no, for very good reasons. Shaughna Phillips, one of the winter 2020 contestants, has said she struggled in the villa.

"I spent lots of time crying to the therapist," she admitted in an interview with The Sun. "I was surrounded by these lovely looking girls, and I felt like the show's box-ticking fat girl."

A programme in which the raison d'être is a guilt-free, voyeuristic consumption of normative beauty ideals will never be able to challenge said ideals in any meaningful way. They've made these body types their entire brand.

The trouble is of course the formula: it is inherently toxic. Maybe Love Island bosses should just cast the classic influencer lot and get on with it without all the hot air inclusivity preamble.
What do you think about the new Love Island line up? Let us know in the comments below.

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Don't kid yourself that Love Island can be 'inclusive'

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"I would love to be hired as Love Island's head of diversity because I too love doing absolutely nothing". Ouch. This was one of the many Twitter takes that have been proliferating online since ITV's Love Island revealed its first batch of Islanders this week.

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Ex-islander from the 2020 season admitted that she felt like the 'token fat girl' and suffered masses of abuse from the size of her legs.

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'I was killing myself doing workouts': Shaughna Phillips admits crying to the Love Island therapist over her 'big legs' ahead of lipoedema diagnosis as she showcases results of liposuction

Love Island star Shaughna Phillips has admitted she was 'killing herself' doing workouts six times a week while on the reality show and felt like the token 'fat girl.'

She said: 'I'd be going to the gym six times a week, and even though I got down to 9st 6lb and a size six on the top half, my legs would stay at a size 14.'

And the beauty told The Sun she would cry to the therapist over the size of the legs and would feel insecure alongside the other female Islanders after being bullied for years over her pins.

The 26-year-old said that water retention from the flight and the heat caused her legs to swell so much she couldn't put her shoes on and she was worried about what she looked like.

It was only when Shaughna left the show that she was diagnosed with lipoedema, a an abnormal accumulation of fat in the legs.

She said she would get constant bruising on my legs, and they would be so painful but I had no idea what it was.

'When I came off the show I had all these messages asking if I had been diagnosed with lipoedema...

'It's scary to think that had I not found out about my condition, and intervened when I did, I would've just been getting progressively worse, and in pain as well.'

She even admitted she blocked the word 'legs' from appearing on her social media before entering Love Island due to her fear of being trolled for the size of her calves.

What is lipoedema?

Lipoedema is a chronic condition typically affecting the legs and thighs.

The build up of fat is not caused through obesity, and diet and exercise have little impact on the condition.

Research suggests it is caused by hormonal changes such as those coming at pregnancy or puberty.

It is typically treated through liposuction.

Source: NHS lipoedema fact file

Shaughna paid for private liposuction to shrink her legs in October as the procedure is not available on the NHS.

She had two litres of fat drained from her calves and revealed the results when she appeared on The Real Full Monty On Ice.

While recovery can take up to six months, Shaughna has already dropped from a trouser size 14 to a size ten.

Now feeling much more confident about her shape, Shaughna said that she is so relieved she got the right treatment for her.

She said that when she was rehearsing for The Full Monty, she had blood dripping down her legs following the procedure.

But she said she's happy to talk about what she's had done, because she's 'not ashamed or embarrassed.'

She previously told MailOnline: 'I paid for all of my surgery; I haven't done any ad or collaboration. Anything I put up now is the wholehearted truth - I didn't want to sugarcoat anything for anyone that might be thinking about getting surgery.

'I've been offered gifted surgery since I came out the villa and you kind of think - I'm in the position now where I can pay for it.

'I don't want to advertise surgery to women that could get themselves in debt for something I got for free.

'It is completely different to changing your hair colour. It sounds a bit over the top but surgery can be life or death.'

Shaughna appeared on the show in memory of her father Eddie who sadly died four years ago.

The black cab driver died aged 50 following an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

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Shaughna Phillips killed herself with workouts over 'big legs'

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Love Island star Shaughna Phillips has admitted she was 'killing herself' doing workouts six times a week while on the reality show and felt like the token 'fat girl.' She said: 'I'd be going to the gym six times a week, and even though I got down to 9st 6lb and a size six on the top half, my legs would stay at a size 14.'

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Nike on Oxford Street introduced plus-sized mannequins to the store

Made me question why mannequins are all the same size?

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Nike introduces plus-size mannequins to London store | CNN

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Plus-size and para-sport mannequins have been installed at London's Nike flagship store, and signal further step towards inclusivity for the sportswear brand.

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Many brands showed their support for the movement by posting a black square, however, charts in this article highlight how minimal the diversity is within their marketing

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At the end of May last year, as protests exploded over police killings of Black Americans, numerous fashion and beauty companies went online to post their messages of support for the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as to pledge their own commitments to change.

Instagram was a preferred channel for these declarations. It's become a vital way for companies to connect directly with audiences, and its photo-based sharing has made it particularly powerful for fashion and beauty brands. Companies published statements expressing solidarity, posted black squares for Blackout Tuesday, and collectively acknowledged a need to do better.

But this temporary pause in marketing was probably the most noteworthy piece of their reaction as far as Instagram goes. A Quartz analysis of the skin tones in 27,000 images from the feeds of 34 fashion and beauty brands, representing a selection of companies across different segments of the industries, found while many did increase the diversity of skin tones in their Instagram images, the increases were often only marginal.

Measuring diversity of models on Instagram

Our data did not try to analyze the images by the race of models in them. Racial classifications can be subjective and vary by culture, while individuals may self-identify in various ways. Racial diversity is itself important, but we limited our focus to skin tone specifically.

It's also important to note there is no single, clear standard for what sufficient diversity looks like. And in the past several years, companies have made noticeable efforts to cast more diverse models.

Even so, our analysis shows that light skin still clearly dominates, raising the question of whether the imagery fashion and beauty companies produce is as inclusive as it should be, or if the pace of change matches the urgency expressed during last year's protests.

Here, for example, is what the data looks like for Dior, a brand with 34 million follows on Instagram. Each circle shows the skin tone of a person appearing on the brand's Instagram feed in 2020. We excluded posts without people, black and white images, and photos with extreme filters or coloring that obviously changed the complexion. The imagery itself can include shots from advertising campaigns, photos from events such as runway shows, and content created specifically for Instagram.

It can be difficult to find a pattern, or to determine the actual diversity of skin tones represented in a brand's feed as they appear chronologically. Arranging the skin tones depicted from darkest to lightest complexions, however, the comparative lack of darker shades is immediately apparent.

When we split our data into two periods-before the protests and after-it's clear that only a few brands significantly changed the diversity of skin tones on their Instagram feeds. For some, like Dior, the median skin tone slid towards darker tones, but almost imperceptibly.

Diversity trends in different industry segments

By segment, there were some noticeable differences in the median skin tones on brand Instagram accounts.

Beauty brands

Beauty companies generally posted images with the lightest mix of skin tones-perhaps surprising given that they most directly deal with the variety of complexions in the world. L'Oréal, the world's largest cosmetics company, increased its share of darker skin tones, though almost imperceptibly, and still had the lightest mix of images both before and after its June 1 post against racial injustice.

Though it improved little, Sephora's median skin tone was darker than most other beauty brands' both before and after the protests. It's also an example of the valuable steps companies can take beyond their Instagram posts. Last June, it signed the 15% Pledge, an online campaign asking large retailers to commit to allotting 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned brands. Other big retailers such as Macy's have signed up since. ( Bloomberg recently reported that retailers buying from more Black-owned and Black-founded businesses is one trend that has persisted since last June.)

Luxury fashion

Luxury companies represented a range, with some of the lightest and darkest medians in our study. Balmain and Burberry in particular stood out, with Burberry's Instagram imagery before last year's protests already included more dark skin tones than its peers.

Celine, which has been criticized before for a lack of diversity in its runway shows, had by far the lightest median prior to the protests and showed no change. It also had a relatively small data set to draw on. Its Instagram includes a large share of black and white images, which we excluded from our analysis.

Mass-market fashion

The mass market was the group with the darkest median skin tones in our data set. Old Navy, owned by Gap, had the lightest median skin tone by a wide margin both before and after its statement on Instagram last June saying it would not stand for racism, inequality, or exclusion.

Victoria's Secret, meanwhile, moved toward the middle of the pack after starting from one of the lightest medians. The company has been working to rebrand itself as more inclusive.

Premium/contemporary fashion

Among the companies in this category, Polo Ralph Lauren, which has long had a loyal audience in hip-hop, was the brand with the greatest variety of darker skin tones prior to last June.

Its median changed little, actually growing slightly lighter, through the rest of the year, while the Ralph Lauren company was also trying to address shortcomings around diversity in its corporate offices too.

Other companies showed greater efforts to increase the diversity of their Instagram models, including Reformation, which was accused of racism in the workplace after it publicly stated its support for Black Lives Matter in a May 31 Instagram post.
For Quartz members only, explore the data for all 34 brands we analyzed: The data behind which fashion brands are keeping their Instagram diversity promises
Why it matters what brands post on Instagram

The images brands post on Instagram are one means among many they can use to promote equity for Black people. Other important steps for companies include reexamining hiring policies; promoting inclusive-not just diverse-work environments; increasing the share of Black leadership; and making sure there is also Black talent behind the camera, in roles such as photography and styling. Sometimes the first step is just measuring diversity to begin with and being transparent with the numbers, as the New York Times found in a recent survey of the fashion industry.

But the images companies produce and publish are noteworthy themselves. They shape ideas of beauty, which have typically been commanded by a white, thin ideal.

"It matters what a brand chooses to present because there are people following them that need to see themselves in their branding and in their imaging," said Amity Paye, senior director of communications and interim chief marketing officer for Color of Change, an online racial-justice organization."If we don't diversify what is presented as beautiful, then our cultural standards stay the same. The fashion industry really has an outsized role to play here in presenting beauty in all of its diversity to the world."

"Branding connotes who the brand considers of value," Afua Addo, deputy director of programs and training at Perception Institute, a consortium of researchers and advocates focused on combating bias, said in an email.

The brands we examined had nearly 600 million followers combined. While there is likely quite a bit of overlap in these followers, that reach is significant.

Instagram is also the venue brands themselves chose for sharing their messages. All the companies in our analysis posted black squares or expressions of support, ranging from text statements to more conceptual posts, such as Louis Vuitton's May 31 video of a Black rider on a horse. Increasing the diversity of the models they present in this same channel is arguably a simple step they could take toward following through.

How diverse should the imagery of fashion and beauty brands be?

As for what a company's distribution of skin tones should look like, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Not all companies in our analysis may share the same goals for diversity. Some are based in the US and others in Europe: Should they try to reflect the local population? Or the diversity of their customers? Generally speaking these are global businesses and may have audiences and offices around the world.

Paye said it's a question that comes up frequently as Color of Change speaks with brands. The organization has partnered with the Black in Fashion Council, a group working to advance Black people in the fashion and beauty industries; talent agency IMG; and model Joan Smalls on a campaign calling for change in fashion.

Ultimately, Paye said it's up to each company to determine its own levels of representation. What's important to remember, she adds, is that representation is a statement of who a company values.

Several companies in our analysis followed patterns similar to Dior's, including Prada, Tommy Hilfiger, Glossier, and L'Oréal.

Other companies made more marked increases in the share of darker skin tones in their images. Calvin Klein, Urban Outfitters, and Gucci were among those showing the greatest changes. Change is also relative. Kate Spade published more images with darker skin tones after it posted a black square and a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. in June. Its feed, however, remained lighter on the whole than several other brands' feeds were prior to the protests.

At a handful of companies, mostly in the luxury group, the median skin tone got lighter after the protests. These include Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Dries Van Noten.

Calculating the skin color from an Instagram post

You'll notice the analysis above looked at median skin tone in brands' Instagram feeds. It's not a perfect measure, and again, there is no absolute standard for what an ideal median is.

It is, however, a useful way to look at how the skin tones changed, and can offer some insight on how brands compare to one another. It also reveals trends that might not be evident just by looking at a brand's imagery. The distribution of skin tones in the Instagram feed of Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, for example, looks more balanced than many other companies' as it includes a number of darker-skinned models. But the median still indicates a high proportion of very light models, showing how skewed the industry as a whole is.

Our focus on skin tone rather than race has some obvious limitations as well. Different racial groups can share the same skin tones, so the analysis misses more nuanced racial differences in representation, even though racial diversity is critical in itself.

Measuring skin tone isn't completely objective either. Some brands use filters or studio lighting that can alter how the skin color appears in images. Accurately determining a subject's skin tone can also be tough if it is brightly lit or has dark shadows, and in each image, it's possible to select a number of colors to represent the skin tone, meaning any individual color in our dataset has some uncertainty.

We left out images in which faces were too small to determine an accurate color. We only analyzed the first image of multi-image posts, and we looked at the placeholder picture for videos. We also excluded companies from our analysis where it proved difficult to assess a large share of their images, such as H&M, Saint Laurent, Fendi, and Balenciaga.

Still, taken as a whole, these distributions were revealing.

Colorism in fashion and beauty

Even without explicit data on the race of people in the posts, the results showed a preference for lighter skin tones. It suggests a bias known as colorism that has pervaded fashion and beauty and carries its own implications.

Addo said the high concentration of light skin tones showed companies "are not fully committed to relinquishing Eurocentric standards of beauty and are only able to celebrate proximity to whiteness, which is not the same as celebrating difference."

"When we talk about diversity of imagery and showing people what we consider beautiful, you've got to be specifically anti-racist, meaning you have to show Black women who are darker skinned," Paye said. "That is a way of being anti-racist that goes beyond just filling a quota of Black womanhood."

Gap Inc., the parent company of Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic, says it is aware of the need for more inclusive representation across the spectrum of skin tones and was working on the issue before last June.

"From my vantage point, it's a really important thing that we talk about skin-tone diversity," said Bahja Johnson, head of customer belonging at Gap Inc. and co-founder of its Color Proud Council, a team focused on ensuring inclusivity across the organization. Much of the conversation in the industry has centered on race, which is crucial, she said. But it needs to go deeper into considerations of skin tone, too, "and it's not always easy for teams to talk about that," she added.

Members of the council work with teams from product to marketing at Gap's brands to make sure they're having conversations about inclusivity, addressing matters such as models being "white passing," a term Johnson says team leaders within Gap Inc. may not have heard of before and might not have in mind. It's perhaps no coincidence that Gap and Banana Republic were among the brands with the highest proportion of darker skin tones in their Instagram imagery.

Old Navy, however, noticeably trailed well behind its sister brands and others in the mass market. "We always have opportunity and we will continue to dig in with the brands to ensure that teams are really clear and have the tough conversations about it," Johnson said.

Quartz reached out to every company included in our analysis. LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Celine, declined to comment on the record, as did Chanel, Versace, and Polo Ralph Lauren. Many others did not reply.

Estée Lauder, which owns MAC and several other brands, said while it felt Quartz's data did not fully reflect its efforts around diversity and racial equity, it was "receptive to any feedback" that helped it achieve its aim of representing all its consumers.

Several brands pointed out their efforts to increase diversity and inclusivity within their organizations and in their imagery. Tommy Hilfiger said while it has stood for inclusivity since its founding, it recognizes it can do more as a brand and launched a new program last July. Reformation and Everlane said they're actively trying to make sure there is better representation of Black models as well as other people of color in their marketing.

Sephora and L'Oréal, which owns brands such as Maybelline and NYX, noted they try to present a full spectrum of skin, hair, and body types. Sephora has also devised an action plan based on its recent study (pdf) looking at racial bias in retail.

What brands do next matters

The public declarations companies make on issues such as racism and inequality matter. But even more important are the actions they take to follow through.

Companies wield a great deal of power in consumer societies. Their actions can directly shape culture, and what they do has repercussions in consumers' lives beyond sales or brand images.

"People can't be a trend to flaunt whenever it's socially impressive. You can't just put Black people or people of color on Instagram pages and pretend that the industry is actually diverse," Paye said. "We need action on all levels to actually create a more just society."

More reporting on colorism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the fashion and beauty industries

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An analysis of 27,000 Instagram images show that fashion's BLM reckoning was mostly bluster

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At the end of May last year, as protests exploded over police killings of Black Americans, numerous fashion and beauty companies went online to post their messages of support for the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as to pledge their own commitments to change.

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Fashion Nova, Forever 21 and Boohoo make up 39%, 12% and 10% of the plus-size market, respectively (Samuel, 2021)

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In the 24 hours after its November 18 launch, Megan Thee Stallion's Fashion Nova collaboration reportedly drove over $1.2 million in sales. The line features 106 pieces, and offers junior, plus and even tall sizes, welcoming women over 5'10" to the inclusivity conversation.

Fashion Nova, Forever 21 and Boohoo make up 39%, 12% and 10% of the plus-size market, respectively. Fast-fashion brands including Asos, Pretty Little Thing and H&M have also launched size-inclusive collections. In contrast, per Edited, less than 20% of sustainable brands carry above-average sizing - Reformation launched expanded sizing in select pieces in 2018.

Fast-fashion retailers often capitalize off egregious labor practices, and their affordable, diverse sizing can leave women who wear above-average sizes chained to the cycle.

"Fast-fashion retailers exploit garment workers, who are mostly women of color; they over-market to Black women, although they do not protect our interests; they steal designs of Black women and other rising designers; and they [do] horrific harm to our planet," said Mica Caine.

Approximately 80% of garment workers are women, according to non-profit company Labour Behind the Label. A February 2015 report by the Clean Clothes Campaign showed that the top garment producing countries in 2011 were China, Bangladesh, India, Turkey and Vietnam.

In July 2018, Refinery29 owed Fashion Nova's ascent, in part, to working with influencers who were women of color. Furthermore, Black consumer choices have a "cool factor" that influences the mainstream, per Nielsen .

Caine and her twin sister own Mive, a marketplace that sells size-inclusive, sustainable styles designed by BIPOC. She said she posted the open letter because she never saw anyone discuss fast fashion in a cultural context.

PrettyLittleThing was contacted for comment and responded by saying, "PrettyLittleThing prides itself on supporting Black culture and the BLM movement. We work with a wide range of campaign faces ensuring we are representing diversity and inclusion across all of our platforms."

Brooklyn-based Tribes of Kin designer and sustainable fashion influencer Mia Anyinke noted another fast-fashion look-alike, which she discovered upon releasing her turtleneck mask dress collection .

"I came up with the idea [for the turtleneck mask dress] in the middle of quarantine and started in August," said Anyinke. "When I actually created it, I looked it up, and nothing came up [that was] like it. When the New York Post article came out, I read it and said, 'Oh, so Pretty Little Thing is doing the same thing.'"

The New York Post article reported that Pretty Little Thing's turtleneck mask dress sold out after Kate Moss' younger half-sister was seen wearing it and that other brands (including Tribes of Kin) were "embracing the all-in-one garment." Anyinke said she was contacted by a New York Post reporter for an interview, but it was only following the article's release that she became aware of such similarities in design.

Tribes of Kin priced the dress at $199, while PrettyLittleThing sold its version for $19. Considering her company's large Instagram following of more than 27,000, Anyinke said she would not be surprised if Pretty Little Thing had copied the style. Anyinke said she felt powerless seeing the images side-by-side. She was not contacted by a Pretty Little Thing representative. Glossy reached out to PLT for comment, and a representative said the company was not aware of the accusations and did not copy the dress.

Anyinke and Caine agree that the systematic exclusion of larger sizes from conscious clothing options only feeds the cycle - and the onus does not lie on Black women alone to fix the system.

Caine said, "It's very important to recognize that the movement is way bigger than just sustainable brands, but it's only in their best interests to cater to Black and brown women, and expand sizing offerings. Almost 70% of women are plus-size in the U.S. , and you're shutting out a key demographic. Black women are fashion."

In a 2016 survey conducted by Yahoo Style , out of 1,000 participants, 24% of Black women identified as plus-size. And women account for 52% of Black Americans, whose total spending power is expected to reach $1.5 trillion this year.

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The cost of representation: Why fast-fashion brands' inclusive sizing is a problem

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Fast-fashion retailers often capitalize off egregious labor practices, and their diverse sizing can leave some women chained to the cycle.

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Recently launched a new underwear skin tone collection. The London-based activewear brand

Has introduced 6 new neutral colours to its seamless sports underwear in a range of sizes from XS to XXXL.

Modelled by employees

Celebrating inclusivity and body positivity

(WGSN, 2021)

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Despite their size ranging from an XS to an XL. This diverse size variety is not shown through their marketing or through their social media

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Boohoo's tube marketing shows a diverse mixture of body types, celebrating lumps and bumps!

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I created this imagery to show the final selected influencers for the paid social campaigns. Utilised the pink colour we had running through the campaign and florals.

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From designer collaborations to sell-out beauty buys, ASOS can do no wrong in our humble opinion.

Just when we thought our favourite online shopping portal couldn't get any better, ASOS just went and dropped a fuller bust range.

The collection, which sits under the ASOS Design subsection of the e-tailer, features a range of clothes which are specifically designed to fit bra sizes DD-G.

So how *exactly* does it cater to bigger busts? Well, most of the dresses and tops have thick supportive straps to keep your bosom upright and enough fabric to conceal larger busts and keep them contained within your clothes.

There's also lingerie designed to support larger breasts; it comes complete with bandeau style cuts, inner gripper tape for a more secure fit and a hook and eye fastening.

Women across social media were delighted with the new range, with a plethora taking to Twitter to laud the collection.

Here are some of the reactions to the range...

[twitter id="1071047763771703297"] [twitter id="1071044220079824898"]

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I have never bought from @ASOS before but I see they're brought out a range 'Fuller bust' for big boobs and smaller waists & I am 100 about this take my money pls
- Tasha (@tasha_dragonfly) December 7, 2018

However, others were somewhat frustrated that the models showcasing the designs didn't have fuller busts themselves...

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Why can't ASOS get models who actually have 'fuller busts' to model their 'fuller bust' range?? How am I meant to know how my tiddies gon' look?? pic.twitter.com/vky4qQI6aF
- Beth Parkin (@_bethparkin) December 5, 2018

ASOS Design has been making major waves in the fashion industry lately. Describing the range online, ASOS say: "Giving you the confidence to express your individuality, ASOS DESIGN interprets major trends, adding a unique ASOS spin from our London design team.

"All the denim, dresses, jackets and pieces you need - including our fit ranges ASOS Curve, Tall, Petite and Maternity and our ASOS DESIGN Makeup collection - to invent a style that's all yours, then switch it up again tomorrow, making every day, night and everything in-between as extraordinary as you are. Your life is eclectic and unexpected and, now, so is your wardrobe."

We're glad to see fashion getting more inclusive by the day.

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ASOS just dropped a range specifically for women with bigger busts and people are delighted

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From designer collaborations to sell-out beauty buys, ASOS can do no wrong in our humble opinion. Just when we thought our favourite online shopping portal couldn't get any better, ASOS just went and dropped a fuller bust range.

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only goes up to 'L+' (size 14-16)

models predominantly smaller

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Sustainable Fashion - Eco Design - Healthy Lifestyle - Luxiders Magazine

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The body positivity movement has become one of the largest push-backs against a lack of diversity and positive self images in the fashion industry. In a nutshell, body positivity is the idea that all human beings should have a positive body image, and the body positivity movement challenges the way society promotes unrealistic beauty standards. The movement advocates for the representation of all body types, sizes, physical abilities, races, and genders.

For a long time, the fashion industry has mainly used white, skinny, young, and female models on runways, in magazines, to advertise new collections, and in brand commercials on TV or elsewhere. In the fashion industry, sample-sized garments are typically between a US size 0 and 4, which is not representative of the average body type. When research and statistics started to come out showing how people were being negatively affected by all of this, people started pushing back.

Approximately 80% of U.S. women don't like how they look, and of normal weighted women want to be thinner. In Australia, nearly of men report an overvaluation of weight and shape. In the UK, has felt shame because of their body image over the last year. Body image, a term used to describe how we think and feel about our bodies, is a big problem in many societies, and people who think negatively of their bodies are more at risk for experiencing depression, social anxiety, and eating disorders.

Some of the biggest contributors to low self-esteem are media outlets and the fashion industry. When companies and brands market their products with a certain type of model, it's almost as if they're telling people who don't have a certain body type that they're not good enough. One study even found that using social media for as little as 30 minutes per day can negatively impact how people view their bodies. UK adults say that images on social media have caused them to worry about their body image. This just goes to show how much power the fashion industry has to either positively or negatively affect how people view and think about themselves.

BODY POSITIVITY'S HISTORY

The body positivity movement isn't the first push-back advocating for acceptance of all body types. The Victorian Dress Reform Movement that happened between the 1850s-1890s was one of the first of its kind, and it aimed to put an end to the trend of women having to modify their bodies through corsets and tightlacing, and during this time women also fought for the right to wear pants.

In America in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance was created to help end discrimination based on body weight and to change the dialogue surrounding obesity and health. In the 1990's, body positivity focused largely on giving people of all sizes a place where they could come together and exercise, and things like "Yoga For Round Bodies" started popping up.

It wasn't until closer to 2010 and the rise of social media platforms that the modern "body positivity movement" really took off. Now social media sites like Instagram are being utilized as advertising platforms for the movement. The body positivity movement has even made its way to platforms like TikTok. Toktok Buddy on YouTube has a 7 minute long video that features different people showing how proud they are of what makes them unique. It's purposefully titled "Normalizing Body Insecurities | Body Positivity | Self Love," and it shows everything from body hair to surgical scars to cellulite. People are learning to accept themselves for who they are and stop comparing themselves to unrealistic images that circulate the internet or other media outlets.

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The Body Positivity Movement and Fashion | Luxiders

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Human beings are diverse, and people are pressuring companies and industries to represent different body types, races, genders, and abilities. Body positivity has always been linked with the fashion industry, and the industry has more power to influence positive change than many people may assume.

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Marketing campaigns show women shaving toe hair in an attempt to normalize things that most people have, but never talk about.

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Meet the award-winning razor And daily essentials to upgrade your routine. GET STARTED Hi, hello! We're Billie. We've created a new kind of routine - one that's unfussy, hardworking and completely clean. Like it should be. Meet the everyday essentials that your top shelf has been missing.

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Inclusive Fashion is More Than Just Size

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Inclusive Fashion is More Than Just Size

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Outlining how there is a need for diversity & inclusivity now with the demanding Gen Z generation

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Consumer consciousness has grown exponentially in recent years, with Generation Z voices and the sociopolitical movements of this century taking center stage across all forms of social media.

The fashion industry specifically has faced a broad array of criticisms involving diversity, inclusivity, ethicality and sustainability, and while fashion brands have made progressive efforts previously unheard of, there is still a long way to go.

Diversity and inclusivity have become essential components of online retail for fashion consumers. Brands that acknowledge the need for racial diversity, body inclusivity, sexual representation and representation of the disabled community are not only necessary but are the future of fashion.

One of the first culprits of fashion inclusivity was and still is size inclusion. The narrative of skinny, long-legged models with light skin and sharp features is slowly disappearing in favor of the body positivity movement, whereby women and men of all body types and sizes are represented.

The unrealistic beauty standards of sizes U.S. 0-4 are no longer tolerated by the public, and the body positivity movement is the "largest push-back against a lack of diversity and positive self-images in the fashion industry," according to Luxiders Magazine.

Body positivity was one of the first aspects of fashion inclusivity to be highlighted in the public eye, largely because traditional modeling agencies wanted " white, skinny, young and female."

The narrative of slim, Euro-centric beauty being the standard contributed greatly to the lack of self-esteem so vividly present in both men and women. According to Park Nicollet Melrose Center, nearly 70% of perfectly healthy women desire to be thinner and 80% simply " don't like how they look. "

Size inclusivity is only one part of the problem. What faces a growing demand now is the need for diversity in the fashion industry, specifically racial and ethnic diversity.

According to The Business of Fashion, the practice of " occasionally putting a non-white face on a magazine cover " is no longer enough, nor has it ever been. Fashion is meant to reflect the audience for which it serves, and that means finally representing people of color community rather than exclusively targeting white people.

Racial and ethnic diversity isn't just confined to models; true diversity means hiring non-white stylists, designers, directors and producers. It means building fashion agencies with both diverse staff and diverse models, because doing so brings in " diversity in perspective. "

Allowing men and women of color to not only model but construct, design and produce fashion campaigns connects communities across the human-made obstacle of race.

Most importantly, diversity in fashion opens the door for people of color to enter mainstream media where they sorely wish to see faces and struggles that resemble their own. It helps make a fragmented community whole.

Inclusivity, however, doesn't end there. Representation of the LGBTQ+ community is also integral to the future of fashion, and given that this community's cumulative spending power would represent the fourth-largest economy in the world, the fashion industry better start
listening to this neglected demographic.

The lack of personalization in fashion is an ever-present issue for the LGBTQ+ community, particularly for the younger population. Consumers are forced to decide between two genders regardless of whether they identify with either one and, for young individuals who are still figuring out both their sexual and personal identity, this is extremely limiting. Modeling has failed similarly, with many transgender and non-binary models feeling " forced to conceal their identities " in order to obtain success in the fashion industry, according to Women's Wear Daily. Members of the LGBTQ+ community should not have to hide their sexuality or gender to succeed.

When individuals who struggle similarly can succeed in a world as cut-throat as high fashion, it opens the door to a whole new market of consumers who wish to support the fashion they see themselves represented in.

This is also true for people with disabilities, who are " often ignored in the world of fashion" despite having an estimated population of 1 billion, according to Glamour. There exists an enormous lack of representation for the disabled.

Seeing models in wheelchairs, with canes or wearing colostomy bags, among other types of physical disabilities, are images that disabled individuals are only now just barely seeing in the fashion industry. ASOS, for example, only recently featured a model with a cochlear implant, which is laudable enough, but truly is the bare minimum.

Another enormous issue is the genuine lack of clothing options that disabled individuals have.

Take blogger Nicola Lavin, for instance. Her struggle with Lyme disease means that she requires functional clothing that can account for her temperature irregularities as well as her fluctuating weight gain. Requesting clothes that account for this, however, means that they will be " difficult to find " and "will often cost more in specialist shops," Lavin said as reported by Glamour.

Therein lies the flaws of the fashion industry, and it is high time for these flaws to be fixed. Inclusivity and diversity are dedications that must be committed to in every aspect of the fashion industry, from employees to models to vendors and producers. It can no longer be a "side project."

The good news is that committing to increased inclusivity and diversity, while most certainly not easy, will permit long-lasting social change and heaping benefits for both companies and consumers.

Consumers will be provided with positive representation and necessary options, and companies will " win the hearts of consumers and employees alike," Forbes reported.

Broader markets and better products mean higher profits and, best of all, the fashion industry will finally be making amends and doing right by its consumers.

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Inclusive fashion is more than just size

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Consumer consciousness has grown exponentially in recent years, with Generation Z voices and the sociopolitical movements of this century taking center stage across all forms of social media. The fashion industry specifically has faced a broad array of criticisms involving diversity, inclusivity, ethicality and sustainability, and while fashion brands have made progressive efforts previously unheard...

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She called out the body positivity movement, saying the term has been “co-opted by all bodies” and has become a trend of “celebrating medium and small girls and people who occasionally get rolls"

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“Fat people are still getting the short end of this movement,” she said. “We’re still getting talked about, memed, shamed,” she added, but “no one cares any more”

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“The body positive movement urges people to love their bodies no matter what they look like, whereas body neutrality focuses on what your body can do for you rather than what it actually looks like,”
- Chelsea Kronengold, the associate director of communications at the National Eating Disorders Association.

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“There’s a lot of pressure and expectations that people put on themselves when you’re talking about body positivity in this more mainstream sense,” - Kronengold

“For example, there’s nothing wrong with having a bad body image day just like there’s nothing wrong with having a bad hair day or something like that.”

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Body positivity vs body neutrality: what you need to know

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Is body positivity toxic? Celebrities like Lizzo and Jameela Jamil are championing body neutrality, the movement that champions acceptance over aesthetics

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Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

The movement of body positivity promotes loving every inch of our body without trying to fit into a mold imposed by society. While this movement has been (and continues to be) immensely necessary and transformative, it must be analyzed in depth.

The great brands that have joined this movement through mareting campaigns, the thousands of Instagram accounts that focus on the subject, the increasing tendency of diseases related to weight and body distortion, and the path that every woman and man have to walk in the search for self-esteem, are some of the issues that can be put on the table for questioning.

Many people may feel more than just "discontent" about their bodies and may be going through a more complex problem that involves much more than negative feelings about it

The excess of positivity in social media is known as " toxic positivity ". Toxic positivity refers to the idea of focusing only on the positive aspects of life, while rejecting or dismissing negative emotions, which are part of our human nature. In this article I want to drive you through the concept toxic positivity applied to the movement of body positivity, which might be a bit controversial, but If anything, I want it to be insightful.

Social media and the body positivity movement can put some pressure on us by making us feel that we should always feel "good" about our bodies regardless of their state of health. While these kinds of feelings empower some, I believe that we need to learn to love ourselves at our own pace, we must learn to walk the path of self-esteem, and understand our mental needs. This sometimes goes with uncomfortable debates with ourselves, which is completely normal and OK.

The truth is that the days of struggle are valid and we will not always feel comfortable and satisfied with ourselves. We can even have a lot of self-esteem and confidence, and still not feel comfortable with what we see in the mirror.

Sometimes I feel that there is a lot of propaganda, often driven by movement activists through social networks, and this can often be overwhelming for us. So, while it's nice to have the concept of "body positivity" and break the social pressure to look a certain way, you have to take your time to build your self-esteem slowly and surely.

We have to learn to build a solid foundation of our self-love, through internal work. This, will allow us avoiding to crumble tomorrow because we have created an illusory security based on external factors.

The body positivity movement is based on the fact that all bodies are beautiful and that we must accept them all. Tall or short, obese or thin, big or small, etc.

However, if a body is svelte or obese, normally it has a direct relationship with the lifestyle we lead. As a general rule, a person who exercises, drinks water, and eats healthy will have a more athletic or slender physique. On the other hand, the person who eats junk food and lives a sedentary life will have a body more prone to obesity and the health problems that go hand in hand with this disease (diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure).

In my opinion, as a person who is involved in cardiovascular disease research, this is the most controversial point in "body positive movement". Those who support this movement say that a body must be accepted regardless of its condition.

Now, if it is something that cannot be changed (such as race or height), it is good that it is accepted as it is. But why should we accept a body type that may not be healthy? Why not change what can be changed?

Confirming that an obese body is not right nor healthy, does not mean that we should go to the other extreme losing weight recklessly, or thinking that because you are slim you are automatically healthy. I believe today´s society is well aware of men and women suffering from body distortion due to social pressure. Thus, while women tend to suffer from anorexia, men suffer more frequently from the opposite picture: bigorexia, which makes them think they look weak, while they aspire to a perfect, strong, muscular, voluminous physique.

Alterations in body shape and low self-esteem are not just a female trait. Men are also sensitive to all socio-cultural changes through time. In the highly competitive society that surrounds us, where we introduced new values such as the cult of the body and the perfect image, men sometimes find a breeding ground for new pathologies related to the illusory search for physical perfection and total health, which evolves to vigorexia eventually.

Eating in adequate amounts and exercising in moderation is what would be best for most people.

There is a very fine line and a very big responsibility around body positivity and good health. The movement of body positivity should not glorify acceptance by ignoring the risk and consequences of obesity.

Kelly DeVos, a writer, and advocate of body positivity, has openly spoken about body positivity and her experience as an advocate of this movement in an article published in The New New York Times. In her opinion article, which I recommend you to read, she discusses how the movement has started and how many body-positive advocates are still struggling with the concept of "wanting to lose weight" since it is sometimes very closely related to fat-shaming.

Kelly, also stated in the interview that she believes that body positivity is a necessary and powerful movement, but it is incomplete, as it focuses too much on feeling good about how you look and overlooks promoting healthy activities to get a body that is not only accepted by you, but is strong and healthy enough to allow you to lead a full and healthy life. And I think this is key to understand the problems that can arise with movement.

In my opinion, the movement of body positivity is wonderful for those women and men who can experience it, but it is not for everyone. When obesity coexists, it is not as simple as " learning to embrace your body," but rather learning to love your process. A process in which you can love your "imperfections" while seeking to change some of them for the sake of your health.

Many people may feel more than just "discontent" about their bodies and may be going through a more complex problem that involves much more than negative feelings about it. Mental health and physical health are closely related.

Diseases such as anorexia, bulimia, morbid obesity, anxiety, depression, among others, are a clear example. That is why it is important to distinguish low self-esteem or insecurity from mental illness associated with body distortion.

Thus, strong messages and movements are overall positive for a collective purpose, but we must create awareness of how important it is to seek professional help for each particular case. Each person has a different story and different struggles to overcome.

Beyond the collective movements, we must stop commenting on other people's bodies. Comments like " you're too thin", " you're too fat", " you went a little overboard with the desserts", " I would not wear that if I was your size ", should stop. We must try harder to empathize with the struggles of others, and try to avoid adding pressure or insecurities to people who we think we are somehow "helping".

Many comments people make about your body are offensive. We need to keep in mind that the only one who has the right to comment on your body is you and your health professional if your life is at risk.

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Why the Body Positivity Movement Could Be Toxic

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The movement of body positivity promotes loving every inch of our body without trying to fit into a mold imposed by society. While this movement has been (and continues to be) immensely necessary and transformative, it must be analyzed in depth.

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the importance of diversion/inclusivity in retail 

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the importance of diversion/inclusivity in retail 

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Driven by a shift in consumers' expectations, diversity and inclusion are becoming increasingly more important for businesses globally. Does it really matter that this is a response to commercial pressure or a higher moral duty? What matters is that the barriers surrounding diversity are broken down and that we change our attitudes and become a truly inclusive society. This shift by businesses is both encouraging and necessary.

Fed by our belief that retail experiences are playing an increasingly important role in defining our broader social interactions, we have been asking ourselves how corporate diversity and inclusion policies translate into the physical retail environment and customer experience. For businesses with a retail presence, how do they deliver inclusive experiences to their customers?

There isn't a straightforward answer to such a complicated question. Every business is different, and brands are exclusive by nature as they are designed to meet the desires and needs of different target groups and their distinct offer requires a specific solution.

For much of a business' marketing activities, it is totally reasonable that they focus on their own target market. But when it comes to branded physical environments, we believe that companies can only gain by making these spaces as inclusive as reasonably possible. Brands can choose their target market, but they can't choose the customers who come through their doors.

Designers, both makers and thinkers, are uniquely positioned to help companies translate complex ideas and corporate policies into the built environment. To encourage further discussions, we have identified a number of insights that will help you understand how your retail experiences can become more inclusive... beyond your own target markets. As a starting point, we defined 'diversity' as the mixture of individuals in society; the range of human differences, and 'inclusion' as the practice of providing equal access and opportunities to people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalised.
Accessible doesn't mean inclusive
When we take a more in-depth look into what is required to comply with the disability regulations, we understand the attention and focus on 'access' but feel further conversations to define 'inclusive' interactions are desperately needed. Inclusion is not necessarily achieved by merely providing access. Real inclusion is achieved when a single design solution provides access for the total scope of human differences. An inclusive solution makes those with differences feel part of the same community, rather than having their differences highlighted and held up to define them.

When people are treated differently from the norm, even in a considered way, they may not feel truly included. Inclusion is not necessarily achieved by merely providing access!

In our store design for Canadian telecommunications brand 'Rogers', we designed a round café table that could be used for consultation and payment interactions by both wheelchair users and non-wheelchair users alike. This well-considered solution was central to the store concept. Yet, we were required by the disability regulations to have an additional 'flip down' table at the high service counter, specifically for wheelchair users. To us, this contradicts the spirit of inclusion because it makes wheelchair users the 'other' and normalises the able-bodied. When people are treated differently to others, even if it's in a considered way, they may not feel equal or genuinely included.

It's not just about the physical differences
Discussions around inclusion and accessibility mainly focus on our physical differences, and we often forget this is only one aspect. This needs to change. As societies acknowledge diversity in all its shapes and forms, our understanding of the impact the built environment can have on these differences also needs to evolve. A concept of increasing awareness is ' neurodiversity ', a term that normalises the variances of behavioural traits in society that have previously been stigmatised. We must be more inclusive of these differences when designing a retail experience.

British supermarket chain Morrisons initiated a nationwide 'Quieter Hour', with Asda, Tesco and Lidl following suit. Their stores are adapted to suit different sensory stimulation of autistic shoppers. During this hour, some of the lights are dimmed, no announcements are made over speakers, and the barcode scanners are silenced. How would you adapt your environment to be inclusive of autistic customers?

You must consider all touchpoints

Translating an 'inclusive' brand positioning into retail action is complex. Many retail brands are making great efforts to be diverse and inclusive but struggle to translate these policies onto the shop floor. When businesses create brands with 'inclusive' positioning, they need to be extra sure that their brand promise is represented throughout the store experience and at each moment of the customer journey. It's no longer good enough for businesses to say they are inclusive. It's how they act that matters. When a brand's in-store actions reinforce its marketing claims, they become more authentic to their values, and a deeper customer connection is achieved.

Let's consider a global leader in brand inclusiveness, MAC Cosmetics. Inclusion and diversity are integrated explicitly into their brand promise; 'All Ages, All Races, All Genders'. We admire the high bar they set for themselves, but... during one visit to our local London MAC store, we recognised some opportunities to translate this promise better and create a more inclusive experience across all the physical touchpoints in-store. Some subtle changes to the store environment can easily help bring the 'inclusive' brand promise to the centre of the customer experience.

Does MAC's physical store experience communicate their brand promise, 'All Ages, All Races, All Genders' correctly?

The promotional images displayed in-store exclusively featured young women, and the product names ('Prissy Princess', 'Mischief Minx', 'Basic Bitch') are heavily directed towards females. These should better reflect the brand's positioning of 'All Genders'. And although we found store staff to be exemplary representatives of the brand's inclusive positioning, and they reflected well the ethnic diversity of their customers, there were no older women nor men amongst their staff in the store we visited. Should a brand appealing to all genders and ages ensure that both males and females of varying ages are always represented in-store? If there is no representation in-store of the brand position in either the promotional imagery or the staff, is their brand position then diminished? We believe that by increasing the diversity in-store through at least one touchpoint, minority consumers will feel empowered without affecting the majority. Would women, being the majority customer base for MAC, be turned off by some representation of men in-store?

Staff diversity is crucial for any retail 'inclusion' strategy
Staff diversity is paramount when delivering an inclusive retail environment for customers. It's not reasonable to expect all stores to reflect the diversity of society, but stores should certainly reflect the diversity of their own target market. There is great power in customers seeing people similar to themselves reflected in the experience. They want to feel understood by the person representing the brand and serving them. Based on their gender, ethnicity or age, an absence of appropriate staff diversity can be a barrier for many customers. As the population ages, older retail employees will be in demand to reflect the customer profile and meet the needs of older consumers in their stores. We already see this as under-utilised in tech-related retail, where having a more senior staff member can vastly change the inclusivity of the store experience for older customers.

We recently encountered a great example of age-diverse staff when visiting London's Tate Modern art gallery. Two older women wearing bags displaying 'ASK ME' were helpful to customers of all ages. Yet, additionally, they were able to convey information through the lens of their age group to their peers. Retail can learn from looking at how other public spaces, like museums, are being staffed.
You cannot prioritise everybody!
We should expect a brand to be inclusive of its target market. Granted, this is an easier task for brands with a niche target audience than for brands that have a wide market appeal. Those with a broader target market require their retail environments and experiences to be inclusive of many individual differences in society.

Consider how a large national based telecoms and media company, with the broadest of customer segments, would create an inclusive retail experience. With such a vast market appeal and the need to be inclusive of so many, they run the risk of becoming so generic that nobody can identify with them anymore. Retail environments and physical experiences that service a broad target market need to take specific care on many levels.

What about the in-store commercial messages? They would need to be relevant and legible to the elderly, but equally relatable for younger generations and accessible for the diverse variety of cultures in our society.

Consider creating an engaging waiting experience that is entirely different for a Gen Z than for a family with three children or an older couple. Designing for those individuals is one thing, but appealing to all of them in a single store is a real challenge. And all are important. Provide a poor waiting experience for a family, and they may lose selling a full suite of home services; a bad experience for a Gen Z, and they may lose a loyal customer for decades. No matter who, all customers expect to be the top priority.

'The proof is in the pudding'. 'Actions speak louder than words'. 'What you do is more important than what you say'. All of these cannot be truer here. It is no longer good enough for any business to say they are diverse and inclusive, businesses need to act and behave inclusively. They don't just need to be inclusive; they need to translate their corporate 'inclusion' policy (or brand value/market position) into everything they do as a business. Branded retail environments and experiences can play a fundamental role in conveying a brand's inclusive and diverse values to their customers, and this translates directly into customers having a positive perception about the inclusivity and accessibility of your brand.

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Businesses and brands will increasingly strive to be more diverse and inclusive, not just because of a larger moral duty to society, but because they will benefit from it, as will their customers. Today there is undeniable evidence showing that when solutions go beyond a business' target market to include the wider diversities within the community, both the business and society benefit. Inclusive design isn't just about elevating the experience of those more vulnerable, it's about actualising the full potential of those in the margins to impact society as others can. Inclusive design creates shared experiences and often unforeseen innovation that all of society benefits from. When we design considering the margins of society we design for everybody, and all of society prospers.

The insights above are intended to trigger a wider discourse around inclusion and diversity within the retail landscape. There are many questions to answer still, and we will continue our path to understanding how these complex social issues can be better translated into the physical world around us.

Like this article? Here are some related pieces:

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Diversity and inclusion in retail | Insight

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The impact of diversity and inclusion on your physical store strategy

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A 2018 survey by Accenture showed that millennials were more likely to choose a brand over another if it had demonstrated inclusion and diversity in:

its promotions and offers (70%),

its product range (68%)

and its in-store experience (66%).

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U.S. consumers expect to spend more money on holiday shopping this year than last year, with millennials likely to be the biggest spenders-and retailers' inclusion and diversity practices, with regards to age, gender, ethnicity and disability etc., are playing a role in millennial shoppers' purchasing decisions, new seasonal research from Accenture finds.

The findings suggest that if a retailer is not authentically committed to prioritizing inclusion and diversity, millennials are likely to take their money to a competitor who is inclusive:

54 percent of younger millennials surveyed believe that retailers have a responsibility and duty toward addressing wider social and political issues with regards to diversity.

51 percent of younger millennials are more likely to shop at a retailer that demonstrates awareness of such issues.

Millennials are more likely to choose one brand over another if that brand demonstrates inclusion and diversity in terms of its promotions and offers (cited by 70 percent of younger millennial respondents and 69 percent of older millennials), their in-store experience (66 percent of younger and 72 percent of older millennials), their product range (68 percent of younger and 70 percent of older millennials), and their environmental awareness (61 percent of younger and 57 percent of older millennials).

31 percent of younger millennials see diversity in the workplace-with regards to staffing, as an important attribute when it comes to deciding where to shop.

"Our research suggests that the millennial generation has high expectations when it comes to retailers' commitment to inclusion and diversity, and those values are influencing their decision-making in choosing one brand over another," said Jill Standish, senior managing director and head of Accenture's Retail practice, in a news release. "National and multinational retailers serve diverse customer bases, so they need to position the brand accordingly -its messaging as well as its product selection. That will require not just more local decision-making, but also assistance from analytics tools that enable retailers to build a granular picture of their customers."

The online survey found that Americans will spend $658 on holiday shopping this year, on average, compared with $632 in the 2017 survey. Nine in 10 respondents said they plan to spend as much or more than they did last year-53 percent and 36 percent, respectively-with only 11 percent planning to spend less. Older millennials will spend $779, on average, while nearly four times as many younger millennials compared to baby boomers (49 percent versus 13 percent) said they plan to spend more this holiday season.

Some other key findings from the survey:

With growing consumer confidence, shoppers are less price-sensitive

Consumers appear less concerned with the economy and their overall financial situation than they were last year-with one-third less likely (15 percent, versus 23 percent last year) to cite "a concern about the economy" as a factor negatively affecting their holiday shopping this year. They were also less likely to cite "healthcare costs," "mortgage payments," "the prospect of higher taxes," and "a recent job loss or the fear of losing their job". This could be one reason why fewer shoppers plan to take advantage of retailers' cost-savings programs or benefits - such as loyalty programs, on-the-spot competitor price-matching, special e-mail offers, Amazon Prime Day, and deal sites such as Groupon or Living Social. In addition, the number of respondents who said they would buy all their gifts in one place even if it meant paying more increased 7 points, to 32 percent this year.

Service and/or "experience" gift-buying is on the rise

The research identified a growing trend away from product gifts such as toys, clothes and household appliances and toward "experience" gifts such as travel, dining out, concerts and the theatre, as well as toward "services" gifts such as lawncare, home cleaning and spa treatments. In fact, the number of shoppers who said they plan to buy physical products as gifts this year dropped 11 percentage points from last year, to 73 percent, and the number who said they planned to buy experience or service gifts increased 5 percentage points, to 49 percent.

Social media is growing as a shopping platform

The use of social media platforms for holiday shopping is growing rapidly. The percentage of respondents planning to use social-media sites for their holiday shopping this year nearly doubled, to 15 percent from 8 percent last year. In addition, the percentage who said they check Instagram before looking or buying elsewhere online more than doubled, to 14 percent from just 6 percent last year.

"Social media continues to be a real disruptor in targeting today's consumers, who are spending a great deal of time in these channels and naturally want to be able to purchase directly, through the click of a button," Standish said. "Now, more than ever, it's imperative for retailers to further rethink and redesign their digital shopping capabilities and methods so they can meet customers on their terms."

Home for the holidays: Grocery category is new addition to this year's survey

This year for the first time, Accenture's survey included questions related to food shopping for the holidays. A key finding: quality matters, and shoppers are willing to pay more for it. Six in seven shoppers (86 percent) cited quality as "important" or "very important." In addition, consumers are also likely to "trade up" when shopping for food this holiday season, with more than half (54 percent) likely to shop from a high-quality retailer and nearly as many (48 percent) likely to buy premium brands instead of the market's own label.

When asked to select the factors that influence their purchases when shopping for groceries during the holidays, respondents most often cited "trust of the grocery provider and its products and services"-with 82 percent of respondents ranking it as one of the top three factors-followed closely by "offers best range of options so you can buy majority of items in one place" (78 percent). More than two-thirds (69 percent) of consumers cited convenience/location of the physical store as the key factor that would inspire them to purchase from a grocery provider they don't normally go to.

The theme of "home for the holidays" seems to ring true, with more than one-third (35 percent) of survey respondents planning to host more holiday gatherings this year than last year. Millennials are leading the holiday hosting trend, with younger millennials (ages 21-27) 50 percent more likely than baby boomers to say they plan to host a Christmas meal or party (60 percent versus 40 percent) and to host a Thanksgiving meal (62 percent versus 41 percent)-and more than four times as likely as baby boomers to say they're planning to host more holiday meals this year than last year. This might explain why they're also more likely to trade up on the quality of the food brands they buy and the grocers from which they buy, as well as why they're more likely than other age groups to purchase from a grocer they normally don't shop at if that provider offers access to food at different stages of preparation (from raw ingredients to chopped-and-diced ingredients to ready-to-eat products).

"Holiday meals have historically been how we show we care for our loved ones," said Standish. "It's positive to see millennials, with their significant purchasing power, taking a greater interest in hosting these important holiday meals at home. And what an opportunity for grocery retailers to meet this generation of shoppers. If done right, it might be the start of a relationship that will last all year and beyond."
The Accenture Holiday Shopping survey offers insights into consumer buying patterns during the holiday time period, providing an indication of retail performance expectations both on the high street and online at a key time for the sector. For this year's study, Coleman Parkes Research, on behalf of Accenture surveyed a representative sample of 1,500 U.S. consumers online. Respondents were split evenly between gender and by age group, with 20 percent each of Generation Zers (aged 18-20), younger millennials (21-27), older millennials (28-37), Generation Xers (38-54) and Baby Boomers (55 and older).

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Millennials will spend big with inclusion-conscious retailers this holiday

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U.S. consumers expect to spend more money on holiday shopping this year than last year, with millennials likely to be the biggest spenders-and retailers' inclusion and diversity practices, with regards to age, gender, ethnicity and disability etc., are playing a role in millennial shoppers' purchasing decisions, new seasonal research from Accenture finds.

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Faced significant backlash for an ad that involved a Chinese woman trying to eat Italian food with chopsticks.

Perceived as stereotypical and racist, the ad had dire effects on the brand’s popularity in China.

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A Facebook study showed that 54% of consumers don’t feel fully represented in online ads.

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People around the world are demanding to see themselves better represented in advertising. They want to see the true diversity of their communities depicted more often-and more accurately-across many areas, including race, gender, sexual orientation and people with disabilities. These expectations apply to brands' full range of marketing, including their online campaigns.

While there has been quite a bit of research examining diversity in traditional advertising, misrepresentation and underrepresentation in online advertising have not been looked at as closely. We wanted to better understand people's expectations of representation online and the impact of diverse and inclusive digital campaigns, so we recently undertook a wide-ranging research project in partnership with experts in the field. The effort included a survey of 1,200 people, a review of more than 1,200 brand lift studies and an analysis conducted with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media of more than 1,000 Facebook video ads.

Our goals were to explore where things stand with representation, people's attitudes toward diversity in online advertising and the impact of diverse and inclusive representation on digital campaign performance. Fundamentally, we wanted to understand the state of diversity in online advertising and the value of representation to people and businesses.

Here we provide an overview of the findings and some key learnings for marketers. To explore the research in-depth, read a Q&A with the researcher and download the white paper.

Online advertising isn't immune to misrepresentation and underrepresentation

Online advertising isn't immune to misrepresentation and underrepresentation

Together with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media we examined a sample of 1,022 global Facebook video ads ¹ to assess how people are depicted in online campaigns.

The results indicate that limiting and negative representations are still present in online advertising, with some campaigns portraying people in stereotypical ways.

For example, the creative analysis found these gender-based issues: ²

Women are 14.1 times more likely than men to be shown in revealing clothing and are 6.9 times more likely to be visually or verbally objectified;

Men are 2.4 times more likely than women to be presented as angry and 1.4 times less likely to be shown as happy.

The creative analysis revealed that underrepresentation is an issue in online advertising as well, with certain groups often omitted from depictions. For example, people with disabilities were severely underrepresented in online ads (present in only 1.1% of the ads examined) as were members of the LGBTQ+ community (0.3%).

"Although there is a concerted effort and priority by agencies and advertisers to improve underrepresented communities onscreen and behind-the-camera, we still see the negative tropes and stereotypes showing up in ads. In order to drive systemic change, we all need to establish measurable goals toward how we approach the work."

Diverse representation in online ads benefits both people and brands

Diverse representation in online ads benefits both people and brands

Facebook commissioned Ipsos to survey 1,200 people ages 18 and older in Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States who use Facebook regularly to understand attitudes about representation in online advertising.
The majority (54%) of consumers surveyed said they do not feel fully culturally represented in online advertising and most (71%) expect brands to promote diversity and inclusion in their online advertising.⁴
Members of diverse communities often feel most impacted. For example, of those surveyed, Latino and Black Americans are 1.8 times more likely to say they see negative stereotypical representation in online ads.

Another key insight from the survey is that when brands do address representation, it has a range of positive effects, including helping to drive purchases and loyalty. Some 59% of consumers polled said they are more loyal to brands that stand for diversity and inclusion in online advertising, and 59% also said they prefer to buy from brands that stand for diversity and inclusion in online advertising. ⁵

Diverse representation can have a positive business impact

In order to understand the business impact of diversity in online campaigns, we analyzed the results of 25 brand lift studies ⁶ in different verticals that were run in 2018 and 2019 and ran 4,000 simulations. We also conducted a meta-analysis of 1,207 brand lift studies. ⁷

We found that online campaigns with more diverse representation tend to have higher ad recall compared with campaigns featuring a single traditional representation. And in more than 90% of the simulations we ran, diverse representation was the winning strategy for ad recall lift.

An additional exploratory analysis also indicated that women tend to have higher ad recall for ads with female characters and men tend to have higher recall for ads with male characters. In other words, people seem to better recall online advertising featuring characters similar to themselves.

Ultimately, our work indicates that digital channels, like traditional channels, currently face challenges with misrepresentation and underrepresentation and that making campaigns more diverse and inclusive creates stronger bonds with consumers, delivers business benefits and has a positive impact on society.

How can online advertisers take action to accelerate inclusive representation?

Use tools to check your latest ads and evaluate their level of representation and diversity. Leverage these insights when planning new campaigns.

Work through questions and prompts when brainstorming creative to ensure inclusive ideas. Continue to check biases throughout the development process.

Turn to data-driven approaches to measure the effectiveness of inclusive representation. Seek campaign refinements to nurture more connections with people.

The entire online advertising industry has a powerful opportunity to tackle this challenge, and at Facebook, we've been working with our partners to develop tools and strategies for addressing misrepresentation and underrepresentation. Learn more about those efforts here and download the full research report here.

-Madeline Di Nonno, CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

"The advertising industry has an outsized responsibility in how members of traditionally diverse groups are broadcast to the world. This research, one of the first explorations of its kind regarding under- and misrepresentation in online advertising, highlights where and how we can do better. It's on us to get this right."

-Nada Stirratt, VP, North America, Global Business Group, Facebook

Watch a video conversation about representation in advertising from SXSW

SXSW 2021 featured a session with Facebook Creative Shop Marketing Science Researcher, Fernanda de Lima Alcantara and Madeline Di Nonno, CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media discussing representation in advertising. Watch that conversation now:

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Diversity Inclusion and Representation in Online Advertising

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People around the world are demanding to see themselves better represented in advertising. They want to see the true diversity of their communities depicted more often-and more accurately-across many areas, including race, gender, sexual orientation and people with disabilities. These expectations apply to brands' full range of marketing, including their online campaigns.

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Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape.

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Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape.

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https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-body-image

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Learn about what body image is and how positive and negative body image is formed. Find body image statistics that will inspire you to help others suffering fro...

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In more than 50,000 adults, 60% of women thought they were too heavy and were self-conscious about their weight, 30% reported being too uncomfortable in a swimsuit, and 20% thought that they were unattractive

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In more than 50,000 adults, 60% of women thought they were too heavy and were self-conscious about their weight, 30% reported being too uncomfortable in a swimsuit, and 20% thought that they were unattractive

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Frederick, D. A., Peplau, L. A., & Lever, J. (2006). The swimsuit issue: Correlates of body image in a sample of 52,677 heterosexual adults. Body Image, 3(4), 413-419

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53% of adults reported feeling worse or much worse about their bodies during COVID

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53% of adults reported feeling worse or much worse about their bodies during COVID

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Holohan, M. (2016, September 01). Kids as young as 3 say 'I'm fat' and need to diet. Retrieved November 17, 2020, from https://www.today.com/health/children-young-3-have-poor-body-image-talk-dieting-says-t102453

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Nearly 50% of adults 16+ consider themselves overweight and nearly 61% want to lose weight.

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Nearly 50% of adults 16+ consider themselves overweight and nearly 61% want to lose weight.

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Centers for Disease Control (Ed.). (2020, June). National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://wwwn.cdc.gov/Nchs/Nhanes/2017-2018/WHQMEC_J.htm

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Over 6 in every 10 women feel negatively about their bodies.

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Over 6 in every 10 women feel negatively about their bodies.

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https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmwomeq/805/80502.htm

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57% of adults reported ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ seeing themselves or people who look like them regularly reflected in images in media and advertising.

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57% of adults reported ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ seeing themselves or people who look like them regularly reflected in images in media and advertising.

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https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmselect/cmwomeq/805/80502.htm

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Decided on this imagery as I felt as though it reflected the concept of the launch event well and what we wanted our concept to be like

L: image from a past beauty event at EL&N Cafe

R: image of a past Glossier Pop Up

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Again, imagery was selected due to what was mentioned in the text.

TOP LEFT: A diverse marketing campaign that provides great contrast to the un-diverse cast of Love Island

OTHERS: the other imagery shows a variety of the Love Island cast which backs up my point in the article

Imagery has great synergy with the text and gives the reader visuals as to how un-diverse Love Island is as well as the comparison to a diverse campaign.

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For the final images I wanted to further cement my message that was discussed throughout the article.

LEFT: Content from Megan Carole, influencer that was mentioned above, powerful message and relates to text

MIDDLE: Shows a heavily diverse marketing campaign to remind readers that the movement can be good, and to provide some contrast to the discussion behind toxicity with a generally positive image

RIGHT: Imagery from Megan Crabbe, body positive influencer that shows a really powerful message that any body can be a summer body!

I wanted to leave readers with the question of whether the movement is positive or negative by highlighting the positive elements in imagery and the more toxic elements in the discussion.

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