According to a report conducted by The Fashion Spot, only 19.6% of the designers featured in fashion weeks were of color as of 2020. During a Feb. 27 panel, Parsons MFA Fashion Design and Society Director Lucia Cube spoke to the continued inacessibility within the fashion industry.

“Fashion is something that exists beyond the spectrum of education with affordable structures,” She said to the Starr Foundation Hall audience during a Feb. 27 panel. 

“Fashion is more than just an industry, business or system to relate to since the moment we are conceived. Because as a foreigner, it ends up becoming oppressive,” she continued.

Cuba said this at an event to celebrate the release of “Fashion+: Inclusive Articulations and Practices in Design, Communication & Development,” a book by Dirk Reynders and BFA Fashion Program Director Marie Geneviève Cyr. With the recent addition of Parsons courses like “Fashion and the Land,” “Fat Fashion: Fashion Design for Large Bodies,” and “Contemporary Indigenous Fashion,” the need for varying perspectives in the fashion industry is slowly becoming more apparent. 

The book is split into five chapters that delve into a variety of topics relevant to both fashion and the world today: activism, social justice, digitization and technology, visual art and style, and gender. Because it contains such a wide span of subjects, Cyr felt it was necessary to branch out to colleagues and sources with various backgrounds in the industry. Some contributors had never written published pieces before.

“It was really interesting to not only have the typical academic writers because it’s not only about that,” Cyr said. “It’s also about finding new ways of getting to other audiences and publics as well.” 

Cyr was joined by a handful of these contributors at the panel, all of them coming from different creative backgrounds — writer and director of Amsterdam Fashion Institute Dirk Reynders, Artistic Director of Complex Stability MX Oops and two Parsons professors, MFA Fashion & Society Director Lucia Cuba and Associate Professor of Integrated Design Otto von Busch. These four artists came together for a panel on the topic of inclusive fashion hosted in the Starr Foundation Hall on Feb. 27, with Cyr as the moderator. 

The slideshow accompanying the panel provided insight into each page, all of which contained its own unique characteristics from the choice of topic down to the size and color of the font used. Cuba chose to examine American society, particularly the youth, from the perspective of dolls.

“We don’t necessarily think about fashion from the perspective of adults, and it sounds very superficial and not necessarily fully approached,” Cuba said. “But it completely determines the way we build identity and the way children interact and think of themselves.” 

Von Busch also focused on young, emerging designers and changemakers, highlighting the importance of bringing diverse perspectives to the classroom. 

“In design school, we need to change practices,” von Busch said. “We need to help our students practice their skills in the workshops about sewing machines and other things. Because how do you create environments in the academic world where students can actually practice these ideals and awarenesses that we helped them foster? How do we help our students to practice things that rub a little bit against institutional walls?”