London Fashion Week Offers (Gasp!) Diversity

After a rocky, anorexia-accusation-laden beginning, London Fashion Week is now offering us a glimpse at runways not peopled with white, pre-pubescent stick figures. PPQ followed in the steps of Carlos Campos in casting an entire runway of black models; knitwear designer Mark Fast sent three “plus-sized” (read “averaged-sized”) girls down the runway in his uber-clingy dresses; and Sykes pulled a Charles Nolan, marching models up to 70 years old down its catwalk. Most of these efforts at diversifying the runway have been alternately praised and decried as gimmicky, oftentimes by the same people. Mark Fast’s casting of three models between U.S. sizes 8 and 12, however, resulted in two of his design team members quitting just before the show. Whether or not you agree that clingy knitwear should be reserved for the tall and waif-like, that seems like a fairly extreme (and douchey) move, doesn’t it? [Elle UK]