Olivier Rousteing is something of an oddball in the fashion industry — for one, he is a black designer at the head of a major fashion house at just 28 years old. He’s also obsessed with celebrity. Where some may pooh-pooh his love of social media and pop stars, Rousteing embraces them. Rousteing is clearly one to go against the grain in the fashion world, and that includes speaking out on the industry’s lack of diversity. The designer told the Telegraph just how disappointing it is, referencing a model friend whom he says has reservations about working in Paris since there are two popular black models already making the rounds. “Honestly, you still count how many colours of people you have in the show?” he said. “It’s just sad. There is no other word. It’s fashion getting old. Just two black girls? In the whole city? I don’t think it would be the same with blond girls.”
For Rousteing, diversity on the runway is about more than just filling a quota of girls from various ethnicities. It’s a representation of a kind of culture that may be foreign to other fashion designers and industry cohorts, but is very real to him. “Sometimes I feel like some designers just focus on the clothes. Obviously it’s a business, but when you do a show you want to be modern – it’s not only about trying to find the fabric that no one else uses,” he said. “Being modern means having a view or a vision of what the world is today. I want to show a vision of my world, what I see and what I want to see in the future.”
[via Telegraph]
