Rebecca Minkoff talks pay gap and lack of women executives

Efforts to advance women in leadership positions in the fashion industry are underway.

The designer behind the wildly successful brand Rebecca Minkoff is pushing to make that goal a reality both on and off the runway. CGTN’s Karina Huber caught up with Minkoff just before she unveiled her latest collection at New York Fashion Week, in a presentation that included a breastfeeding mother.

Supermodels, designers, fashion icons and influencers – New York Fashion Week has yet again dazzled its audiences and set style forecasts.

But while some looked to apparel colors and details to find the prime theme, Women empowerment took the spotlight. Inclusivity was at the center of nearly every runway and show this season. It’s about time.

While at first glance the fashion industry favors women, behind the smiling cover-girls, are major gender diversity issues.

Even though the business is overwhelmingly supported by female consumers, who spend three-times more in clothing than men. Not even half of the major womenswear brands are designed by women.

And while they make-up the majority of fashion school graduates, and hold the most entry-level jobs in the industry, women seem to run into dead-ends. More than 80% of major fashion labels are run by men.

Is NYFW going out of fashion?

New York Fashion Week first launched in 1943.

For decades, it followed a familiar routine. Designers would showcase their collections; the buyers would place their orders and six months later the clothes would be in the stores.

But the rise of social media and fast-fashion has completely disrupted all of that. CGTN’s Karina Huber reports.