Fashion’s Diversity Dilemma: Trend or Transformation?

Examining fashion’s uneasy dance between tokenism, appropriation, and authentic inclusion.

Typographic Covers/ The Times UK/ from Coverjunkie

After decades of homogeneity, fashion still finds itself stumbling. The summer of ’25 unravelled a string of controversies. Brands found themselves at the center of scandals ranging from racially insensitive campaigns to collaborations that “forgot” to acknowledge the very people whose cultures they were borrowing from. But were these mere accidents, or reminders that behind the gloss of inclusivity, the decision-making rooms remain startlingly uniform?

In an age of radical transparency, where information moves faster than brands can manage, the question looms larger than ever: who is responsible for releasing these campaigns, and how can they truly understand the weight of their narratives on people across different cultures? If the marketing board approving those campaigns looks the same as it did twenty years ago, how much has really changed? It’s like serving up a “fusion” dish without ever having tasted the original cuisine. Someone is bound to notice the lack of authenticity.

While fashion has long broken out of its Western stronghold, its definitions of inclusivity often remain tethered to Euro-American ideals, leaving global representation still in tension.

Diversity today suspends uneasily between being a glossy marketing tool and a tokenistic exercise. The runway may appear more representative, but behind the scenes, decision-making tables remain largely untouched. The debate now sits at an uncomfortable intersection of honoring “merit” without letting it serve as a smokescreen for maintaining sameness, and whether structural reform can usher in sustainable diversity beyond surface optics.

Can ethical shifts in how the industry is built prevent appropriation and tokenism?

Perhaps the more pressing challenge for fashion to remain relevant is that it must decide whether diversity is a seasonal trend or the foundation of its future. After all, style may be cyclical, but values are supposed to last.