The industry began to look more representative of its consumers and enthusiasts. In the last decade, the fashion world has gradually seen new leadership hires at magazines, the creation of new talent agencies and funding for designers on the rise. But since the peak of supermodels like Kimora Lee Simmons, Ling Tan and Jihae, an era when Asian household names were few and far between, photographers, designers, and labor forces alike have advocated for a changing of the guard. In 2016, The Fashion Spot released a diversity report stating that, out of 236 spring print campaigns, approximately eight percent of the models were Black, four percent were Asian and four percent were Latino. There was, apparently, scant incentive to provide anything more. Even up until the 2010s, fashion’s way of heralding Asians was by titling them the “first” of a certain descent to walk a runway, open a show or be named creative director for a luxury house. There wasn’t always such plentiful space. All accessories and clothing by Louis Vuitton. Models: Xue Huizi, Seohyun Kim and Lian Koster. This is true in luxury fashion as well, an industry that was once dominated by whiteness. To celebrate one’s Asian background is to reject all the conventions that suggest Asianness is a monolithic identity, and to use the spaces that are now given to celebrate not just survival, but flourishing. Much of the collective strife- encapsulated in headlines and viral videos of hate crimes-has opened up a dialogue to define the multifacetedness of being Asian, Asian American or an Asian in America, all of which consist of different classes, languages and histories.
What once was fallow is now flowering: In 2022, more of the Asian diaspora find themselves standing on greater ground to share their perspectives about their respective fields.
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