Gosha Rubchinskiy's Runway Show Featured Zero-Percent Diversity
Making it the least diverse throughout men’s fashion week.
Gosha Rubchinskiy presented his Fall/Winter 2018 menswear collection in Yekaterinburg, Russia, earlier this month. The show was filled with the designer’s signature sartorial elegance and unorthodox designs, but lacked something else – diversity.
In a list published by the Instagram account @moremodelsofcolor, the Russian designer ended up at the bottom with zero out of 31 models being classified as people of color. Berlin-based GmbH snagged the top spot with 24/28 models being models of color, making it the most diverse show during men’s fashion week. Rubchinskiy’s casting comes at a time when diversity is more important than ever, and as an influential streetwear designer there is an opportunity to create a shift in the already difficult industry. After the list was shared by platforms like SSENSE, users were quick to question Gosha’s casting.
It remains to see whether the designer himself will begin to take diversity into account for his upcoming shows, but it is clear that the need for diversity in the fashion industry has never been more important than now.
