[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. This is The Takeaway. If you've been a regular listener during the last month, you've likely heard me confess that my current fashion acumen is well below, "I see you made an effort," and only just above, "Oh girl no."

Female Speakers: Hated it

Melissa Harris-Perry: Which explains my utterly blank expression when the far more fabulous or bane young producers of The Takeaway came to me with an idea to discuss issues of fashion and racial justice. Who cares about fashion in a pandemic?

Crowd: A lot of people.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Came the side-eyed response. Turns out they were right. Every day, fashion publications, designers, editors, stylists, models, photographers, tastemakers, and trendsetters make choices that wield significant cultural power. For too long these choices have deepened racial inequities. Now there's a movement to wheel this influence to advance racial justice. I sat down with Lindsay Peoples Wagner editor in chief of The Cut from New York Magazine to discuss what the last year and a half have been like for the fashion industry.

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: It's just been, I think really complicated and frustrating and emotional for a lot of people in fashion because a lot of the things that we have experienced, especially as people of color have been prevalent for a while, and it hasn't been a secret. I think this past year definitely has given people the space and the time and I think just the level of comfortability to be able to speak up a little bit more and raise our concerns.

I think at the end of the day, people of color in fashion industry, we want to be seen and heard, and we want that equality. We want that equity. We want to be able to actually see diversity, not just on the runways, but behind the scenes. It's going to take a really long time as I think racism is really embedded in the fashion industry and privilege in many ways. I think people don't understand, but it's definitely a start in this past year finally having some really crucial conversations.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I want you to pick apart and describe for us the various aspects of the fashion industry. For those of us who are not in the industry who maybe only see one aspect of it, say the photographs of runway models. Talk to me about the other pieces, the editors, the designers, the presumptions about beauty. You can pick whatever buckets, but help us to understand what aspects of the industry need both diversity and justice change.

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: So much in fashion and beauty spaces because I think what people don't realize is the representation and the responsibility that we have directly affects everything. Whether it's from beauty standards, celebrities getting roles, or being a big face of a brand to who you look up to, and who you idolize, and what you think is possible for your own life growing up.

I think what people also fail to understand about what we do in fashion and beauty spaces is a lot more subjective. The industry has gotten away with a lot of bad behavior for a very long time. We readily are choosing every single day who's cool, who's worthy of an opportunity, who's on-brand, who has the right aesthetic. All of those decisions are a really huge responsibility. I think in my role it's always been how can I be intentional and thoughtful with this responsibility, with this power?

Melissa Harris-Perry: Lindsay, I'm struck by you saying the part of what you do, particularly as an editor is to determine what's cool. To say, this is what's in. This is what's cool. Yet I'm thinking about how much that aesthetic does always feel to me. It emerges frankly from Black women, but also frequently from Asian American women. That sense of like, "Oh, this is what is beautiful. This is what is hot," but then it gets shifted maybe even appropriated by the broader fashion industry. What does that relationship like?

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: Appropriation has always been extremely tough because to me it's very common sense. If you didn't come up with something, there's no problem in giving credit where it's due. A lot of intellectual property and ideas in fashion I think get twisted. Also, I think that people don't ever really want to do the history and learn. I think a big thing also in fashion is a lot of the references that we use of where hairstyle came from, or where certain fabric came from, or where a style of address came from.

There haven't been enough editors who actually want to take the time. It is required for them to actually learn the history of different people of color, and styles, and fashions, and inventions of creators and innovators in the past. I think a lot of times people assume if there's a trend or something that, oh, like, this white designer did it. They were the person who came up with this.

When a lot of times when you do your research and your history, oh no, that was actually a person of color who created that or started that. Maybe they just weren't as famous or they didn't have as much access. It's always been I think a contentious relationship and appropriation has definitely been rampant in the industry. I think more and more there I'm only one of the few people of color editors in the industry, but I think we're trying to make some strides to make sure that it is a better industry.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm wondering if conversations about diversity and inclusion, just to use those terms, around, for example, body size, or gender self-presentation, or age. For older folk, and plus plus-size folk, and folks whose gender self-presentation may not align with cis-gender norms. I'm wondering if they're connected such that one justice or inclusion brings the other, or if they really need to be separate conversations within fashion?

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: I think they're connected and I often talk to brands about it all the time. I think also sustainability is connected to that as well. I think climate change is connected to racial justice. I think size inclusivity is also connected to this conversation. Inclusivity as a whole, I think the fashion industry hasn't made enough strides. Even if you just want to talk about specifically size inclusivity alone-- I've been writing about size inclusivity for so long.

There are so many different events, plus size fashion week, and different things that are geared towards inclusivity around sizing that editors just do not go to. Have never seen don't care. I think that to me, is also a larger industry change. The industry needs to change what is allowed, what is okay, what are the standards for an editor?

I think that really also has not shifted traditionally. If you want to talk about largely in that what you're also talking about is beauty standards, and most beauty editors wouldn't be able to tell me what my curl pattern hair type is.

Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs] Yes, that's the mystery, right?

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: Yes, because they're versed in European beauty standards and they know the big name, hair brands, all of that, but they wouldn't be able to tell me, "Okay, I'm taking my braids down today. I have 4C hair, what should I be using to detangle?" Etcetera. I think that standard also in the industry has to change in order to have these conversations because right now that standard is low.

People don't feel like, "Okay, you're fashion editor you should also be inclusive around size of sustainability and all these other things." I think once that standard and that bar is raised, it would become a lot more of a natural conversation because it's very natural to me. I don't think where we're at it's natural to the people in power so then it doesn't also become part of the conversation.

Melissa Harris-Perry: See Lindsay, because you brought it up, I feel like you have to give us an answer to that question. If I'm taking my braids down with my 4C hair, what is the conditioner or detangler I should be using? [laughter]

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: I actually just tried from Tracy Ellis Ross' line. She has this pattern brush and then I use this brand, Amika, and it has a detangler and its detangler is actually wonderful. Look at that.

Melissa Harris-Perry: See there you go. New, you can use here on The Takeaway because like for real though, that is where the struggle meets the reality of our daily lives. Lindsay Peoples Wagner is the editor in chief of The Cut. Lindsay, thanks so much for joining us.

Lindsay Peoples Wagner: Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure.

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.