These Style Powerhouses Are Using Fashion To Change The World Around Them

By Faith Cummings


because the style industry very much centers ladies — whether for good, bad, and all of the sentiments in between — it’s no wonder that brands are using Women’s History Month as a moment to uplift both consumers and the famed faces and trendsetters that serve because the tastemakers of the style world. It’s an action that makes both dollars and sense; women’s clothing accounted for about half of the $1.7 trillion that consumers spent on style globally in 2017 according to a report from Euromonitor. And one of the most efficient ways to harness the power of a crowd that is forecasted to spend $830 billion on clothing by 2022 is to empower them, which is why you’ve likely been seeing a unprecedented assortment of brands harness Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day for their own messaging.


Among those brands was Levi’s, who gathered a powerful panel of ladies who all use style for good, to play, and to agitate on March 8. The sort, which included Orange Is The New Black star Danielle Brooks, style stylist Karla Welch, and Güerxs founder Maria Osado, discussed with Elaine Welteroth about how style shapes their worlds and how celebrating females is key not just throughout March, yet each and every day.


While in the panel, Brooks explained that her approach to nearly all things is to constantly shift her focus and energy from those who seek to exclude her to those who celebrate her. To that end, she took time to shout out several key ladies in her life — including fellow Juilliard alumni Teyonah Parris and Nicole Beharie, and also OITNB creator Jenji Kohan — for not only inspiring her, yet for also changing what she thought possible about a career in the arts. “I try not concentrate on the people who mention no to me because I just may not fit their puzzle,” she affirmed. “I can’t take it personally. If that was the case, I would just crumble and give up because there really are a lot of puzzles I never fit.”


To that end, she stressed the significance of “finding your tribe,” and the people who will celebrate your wins as their own. Brooks also underscored “finding new avenues and finding those people that are down to work with you, alternatively opposed to focusing on these old heads who can’t get it together.”


Welch, who counts Tracee Ellis Ross, Sarah Paulson, and Anita Hill among her customers, agrees.  “I think it's a day to all high five each other and cheer each other on,” she told MTV News about International Women’s Day specifically. “I mean, that is each day for me nevertheless I like the idea of one worldwide female high five.” And though the stylist and Hanes collaborator works pretty much nonstop, she’s also taking this moment in her life and career to listen and learn from females of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and other marginalized groups.


“I know I’m a white girl, so the quantity of listening and learning that I am doing…that’s sort of everything because I run my own agency and I’m sort of like the captain of my own ship,” she stated on the panel. Stylists very much design a global of their own for their customers that is propelled forward by their vision and making those they cater to feel and look their best. Although activism requires that Welch constantly thrust herself into reality and all of the stark contradictions it holds as soon as compared with the Hollywood bubble. “To belong to political advocacy groups is all about learning and hearing and compromising and networking with because there’s usual ground,” she added.


And while IWD and Women’s History month both serve as a reminder to celebrate ladies and their accomplishments, Güerxs founder Maria Osado wants to create ensure we don’t don't think about the pain and rage that can propel us to move forward and act. The 21-year-old began the Mexico City-based modeling company in March 2016, in a task to prepare media, advertisements, and the runway resemble the diversity of Mexico City in a more comprehensive way.


International Women’s Day specifically, she tells MTV News “comes from a really sad event, which is the rights of girls being completely unseen. So, there’s a lot of anger, yet it reminds me to be very aware of the injustice and what we have to stand for. It’s also a possibility to just think about how several possibilities we can give each other and to protect your community.” Osado hopes the world at large uses the day as a reminder to mirror on girls and the fact that they all deserve respect.


For Brooks, that pain frequently manifested in the form of erasure; she instructed them panel will never forget the feeling of never seeing a realistic depiction of herself in the movies, television shows, and plays she voraciously consumed any time once she was growing up. “I graduated Julliard and I just went through this time of being confused,” she recalled of that exhilarating nevertheless terrifying time of her life pre-fame. “What I was seeing in Hollywood didn’t look like me, so I thought do I need to straighten my hair? I couldn’t go and get bleached skin, so I had to stick with that. I was wondering if I should lose extra weight or increase weight. I was so confused.”


That’s why she has been so adamant about using the juggernaut that is style to celebrate not only her body, yet also brands who have made inclusivity piece of their agency goals. She also touched on her 67 Percent Project with Refinery29 and Getty Images for example of how firms and publications can also do a higher class of job of reflecting the reality of the average woman.


“67 percent of ladies are a plus-size — size 14 or above — and only two percent of those are represented in media as soon as it comes to posters you visualize and tv commercials and magazines,” she explained of the project’s aim. “When I think of only two percent of us being seen, pick two of the ladies closest to you—let’s mention your mama and your auntie. That insinuates that every other woman you know can’t be seen. That’s so weird.”


Yet she has seen demonstrable efforts from brands like Christian Siriano, Chromat, Michael Costello, and Marc Bouwer — labels, she explains, who have dressed her and females of all ages, shapes, sizes, identities, and abilities. “I’ve got to work with organizations like Universal Regular and Lane Bryant and design clothes,” she added. “Just showing people how our bodies work and what we need. We need helpful bras and fabrics that work for us. Putting into the world what you’ve wanted to be able to see for so long and to be a segment of that movement has been awesome.”


Osado isn't only hoping the industry will do better, however she’s actively working with brands like Barragan to prepare style casting more inclusive.  She stressed the significance of Latinx visibility in the space. “New York is a most crucial place for style, nevertheless I don’t visualize that representation here very much,” she explained.


For her part, Osado wants more people to feel they’re a segment of style and that it isn’t just an exclusive platform for people with cash. “It’s a way of expressing yourself each day. Just like it,” she adds.


and also the panel, Levi’s also screened short films (some produced by Girlgaze) that feature Osado and ladies activists all around the world making change — including Singaporean menstrual cup designer Rebecca Paranjothy; Russian lawyer and online advocacy network founder Anna Rivina; and American gun control activist Delaney Tarr, who survived the Parkland attack. The fact that the brand aimed to highlight activist movements was essential to Welch, a longtime Levi’s collaborator whose 501 collection benefitted the gun-control advocacy sort EveryTown.


“It’s my purpose to collaborate and work with meaningful partners” Welch says. “I love style, I love stuff, yet I also love caring and building a difference way more.” Her mother, she adds, was a “bleeding heart activist,” so giving back to different causes has habitually been a formidable piece of her life. She uses her Instagram account to herald moments like the passage of crucially-needed gun control charges along with a record variety of girls being elected to the United States Congress. She hopes that more brands follow the lead of Levi’s — especially those who have trepidation in incorporating activism into their business.


“People would still work with you,” she stresses. “You can put your beliefs out there, you could can assist, and also you could really make a difference. That’s what it’s there for.”