How Authentic Are Gucci's New Diversity Initiatives?

If you like to keep updated on the latest releases in fashion, you might have seen a recent Gucci release that generated a lot of buzz. Inspired by who knows what exactly, this jumper is, for all intents and purposes, a woolen blend of racism advertising blackface. As I do with all my other important news information, I first heard about this on Twitter with a caption that called out the obvious racism by stating “Happy Black History Month.” Almost immediately after going viral, Gucci took the jumper off their website and issued an apology. Now, about a week after the fact, the company is back with new diversity initiatives clearly meant to bring them back from the hole they dug themselves.

First and foremost, it’s important to take a look at what exactly the new initiatives are. The first of the four initiatives (which, yes, I also read about on Twitter) is to not only hire more inclusively but also to create an entire position focused on making sure they meet that goal. The “Global Director for Diversity and Inclusion” position based in New York will be directly responsible for ensuring that Gucci is hiring more diverse applicants than they previously have. The second is to create a scholarship program that will partner with fashion schools around the world and provide underrepresented voices with a chance to work within Gucci and boost not only their careers but also the company’s diversity.

While the first two initiatives focus on the hiring policies of the company, the last two deal with global learning. Gucci will be creating a new program within their company that emphasizes the unconscious cultural bias that exists in the workplace in the hopes of creating awareness around it and hopefully eliminating such biases. The final initiative is a Global Exchange Program which will allow internal mobility for more people to come and work at the headquarters in Italy.

Sounds great, right? Not only did Gucci apologize for their racism but they also immediately set up a plan to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again! While this all sounds fantastic, however, it becomes a little less amazing when you stop and think about Gucci’s motivations for these initiatives. Once the jumper became public knowledge, large figures such as Spike Lee and T.I. (both people with a large amount of pull over their followers) called for a boycott of Gucci products. When a brand with such a large household name gets called out and could lose loyal supporters, it’s understandable that those running the show at Gucci got a little nervous.

What makes the diversity campaign seem as if it may just be for show? For starters, the initiatives were announced on Twitter, which is a reflection of how much they are hoping this changes their public image as it’s inevitably going to reach an audience of greater than just those who would seek out the information. Secondly, the initiatives came out extremely quickly after the whole situation. While I am all for a quick turn around and fixing of mistakes, the urgency with which Gucci released these global, company-wide initiatives is telling of just how worried they were about the effect that this would have.

Not all is awful, however, as regardless of what the motivations behind the initiatives are, they still seem to be happening and could result in actual change. Once the new diversity initiatives are fully implemented, hopefully there will be a visible difference within the brand. While it’s currently up in the air whether this event will really make a difference within Gucci, one can hope that it was at least enough to ensure that other brands recognize the importance of not releasing clearly racist, and quite frankly ugly, products in the future.

FashionRadhika Rahlangucci, diversity