Caryn Franklin x All Walks Talk

Today we were lucky enough to have a talk with fashion commentator Caryn Franklin, former Fashion Editor of i-D and now co-founder of All Walks Beyond The Catwalk - the campaign that challenges fashion's idea of beauty and encourages diversity.

What we've learnt today has been invaluable, not only to us but to the future of the industry. We are the future and if we want to improve the quality of life for many women, girls, men and boys then we need to accept that we are accountable. What we do can make an impact. This might be through any media; journalism, illustration, photography, casting etc. We need to utilise our personal practise and use these platforms that we're very lucky to have to spread the word about diversity.

From a promotion point of view, the market is global. So why are we always using caucasian, thin models to promote products? China is currently one of the largest ermerging markets, and with many other ermerging such as India, Mexico, South Korea and Turkey. These aren't Western, these aren't typically caucasian countries. Our consumer is diverse, yet our selling point is not. Taking a step further back, seeing the bigger picture, that our ideal of beauty is largely unattainable. This is why so many Chinese woman (around 50%) undergo "double eyelid surgery", and others have nose jobs to obtain a more Western nose as a rite of passage. China's plastic surgery culture is horrific, and this is almost certainly down to the Western beauty ideal. It's not only China, but "women of colour" are using skin-lightening treatments. The pain that women go through to obtain a certain look is devastating. These are not even the worst examples.

Caryn showed some images that really hit home for me, ones that provoked thoughts of gang rape (such as the above), female vulnerability, child pornography, addiction and disorder. Some people take what the fashion magazines as gospel, so having these images with these underlying issues can be truly detrimental to the viewer.

As the future of fashion we need to help abolish this by changing our imagery, All Walks is a really inspirational campaign that changes the face of fashion for the better. Designers need to design for bigger sizes, illustrators should reconsider their body shapes, and us as promoters should cast a wider range of beautiful women and men. Challenge yourself and everybody around you. This will undeniably help the next generation in having a better body image for themselves.

Thank you to Caryn for her inspirational talk!