In today’s fashion industry, diversity and representation are massive determining components when it comes to the success of a brand.
If a brand doesn’t represent their customers in an accurate way, then they are likely to get called out for it. This leads to modern luxury brands — such as Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Gucci — adding sporadic diversity to their runways in order to satisfy their critics. The fashion community is starting to experience a shift, though, that makes runways look more like a walk down the street. The casting done by new small brands, such as Eckhaus Latta, is bringing revolutionary inclusivity to the playing field, and they are not asking for gold stars.
A common theme seen in Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior is her method of capitalizing off of feminism, and that is where the disconnect is between houses like Eckhaus Latta that actually care about diversifying the fashion industry. Their runways curate a sense of unapologetic community that everyone looking at the collection can feel. Through this cultivation of natural inclusivity, Eckhaus Latta’s brilliantly simple designs are able to have the desired effect on their customers.
Zoe Latta and Mike Eckhaus channel their sculptural styles into designs that use unconventional materials that are constantly evolving.
There is no target age, gender or race when it comes to their demographic, and that is part of what makes the brand so special. The two also use their platforms to work with fashion filmmakers and small artists who need the exposure to help their own brand.
They propagate projects that display their own creative direction, while not relying on it, because the clothes they create can stand alone in solidarity.
Eckhaus Latta has cleverly found a way to fertilize a brand that represents anti-capitalistic inclusivity, struggling creatives, and hard work. They built their company by themselves and never use that aspect of their brand to further their careers. They have constructed a solid foundation for themselves that can only continue to build upon itself. This new narrative of impenitent indivisibility in the fashion industry will soon become the default, and it is all thanks to brands like Eckhaus Latta.
Cover photo courtesy of https://www.freundevonfreunden.com/interviews/mike-eckhaus-zoe-latta/. All additional images are from Vogue Runway.
