The Black in Fashion Council aims to hold companies accountable with equality index scores
The deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, along with all too many others at the hands of police have uprooted a global outcry for social justice across all industries.
Joining this movement to create radical change, TeenVogue editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples Wagner and communications consultant Sandrine Charles have founded the Black in Fashion Council to represent and secure the advancement of Black men and women in fashion and beauty companies.
"As a collective, we envision a world in which Black people in fashion and beauty spaces can be open and honest, guaranteed equal rights, and be celebrated for our voices," the council wrote in an Instagram post.
The collaborative collective officially launched this month and it includes a group of Black fashion and beauty stakeholders, leaders and creators.
The Black in Fashion Council plans to initially partner with companies to produce equality index scores, which will be a progress report on how they are doing in terms of diversity along with the resources and access to advisors to help them improve.
Cancel culture vs. Accountablity culture
Wagner explained to ABC News' Amy Robach during "GMA3 What You Need To Know," "We really want to move from this place of cancel culture to accountability culture, and it sets the precedence of allowing us to have the conversations that are needed with brands and not being this one-way street of just people being frustrated."
When brands sign on to partner with the council, there will be a three-year agreement to make sure long-term change is in place.
In 2018, Wagner wrote the The Cut's "Everywhere and Nowhere: What it's really like to be black and work in fashion" where she interviewed 100 Black individuals who shed light on their personal experiences.
"A lot of people's experiences were just really heartbreaking, and I think that really moved, this really moved us to this conversation now of, 'How do we bridge the gap from the narrative that we know and that we've seen and all experience to creating something that really makes a more long-term sustainable change," Wagner told Robach.
The Black in Fashion Council has already secured partnerships with designer fashion brand Gucci as well as GQ and i.D. magazines.
When speaking to the future of the collective, Charles told Robach, "I think that everyone's looking to make these larger long-term changes, so I'm pretty confident that we can rally the troops and get everyone together to create the change that we need in our industry."
