Beyond Virgil, what equity in the luxury fashion industry looks like

The Fairchild Media Group hosted its Fashioning Equity Forum recently with a star studded international group of speakers and diversity advocates. During a panel entitled “Abloh and Beyond: What Black Leadership and Legacy Means for Fashion,” Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, who is half-Ethiopian, half-Somalian, and was born in a French orphanage, remarked that he is back to being the only Black designer in a high profile position of a luxury house. Virgil Abloh had been artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton until his untimely death this past November. The 41-year-old designer will be the subject of an upcoming retrospective of his two-decade career at the Brooklyn Museum in July, "Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech."