The keys to rethinking DE&I according to the Fashion Minority Report's summit
The Fashion Minority Report (FMR) hosted its inaugural Conversations for Change DE&I Summit - a noteworthy event designed to ignite fresh thinking and meaningful dialogue across the fashion industry on the future of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Held in London, the summit brought together a diverse audience of industry leaders and changemakers, with attendees from major brands including Dunhill, Stella McCartney, Selfridges, Schuh, Axel Arigato, Joseph, and Margaret Howell.
The event served as a bold call to action pushing forward DE&I within fashion with FMR founder Daniel Peters setting the tone. He said: "Our inaugural Conversations for Change summit was an incredible platform to showcase a broad spectrum of ways in which we all must continue to shift the DE&I dial.
"This conversation is not a one-size-fits-all dialogue, and nor is the work, but what we can all do is learn from each other and build more effective strategies to create change that feed into the bigger societal picture."
Here's TheIndustry.fashion's cheat sheet and key take aways from the summit.
Championing DE&I: From tokenism to talent
Writer and Activist Simon Fanshawe urged the industry to move past buzzwords and focus instead on cultivating "the flowering of talent". Fanshawe encouraged leaders to change the language to get viewpoint diversity.
Brigit Neu, a Senior DEI Advisor, added: "Let’s focus less on the rebrand of DE&I and more on the action in empowering talent."
The Impact of Social Impact
A panel on social impact revealed how systemic inequality continues to block access to the creative industries. Pascale Montaner, SVP Global Marketing at Kurt Geiger, highlighted that while 40% of young people express interest in creative careers, only 16% of professionals in the sector come from working-class backgrounds.
Chantal Khoueiry, Chief Culture Officer at Bicester Village Shopping Collection, reminded the audience that "any business that wants to remain relevant has to embed social impact into their strategy". She stressed the importance of collaboration between private and public sectors to unlock real, scalable change.
Jakyha Rahman-Corey, Director of the Swarovski Foundation, connected sustainability to social responsibility, sharing how her brand links its water-based crystal production to access-to-water initiatives in marginalised communities.
Challenging Disability
Victoria Jenkins, the founder of adaptive fashion label Unhidden, challenged the industry to rethink how it visually represents people with disabilities. "Simple shifts can be achieved just by starting to shoot models sitting down. They don’t even have to be in a wheelchair," she said, emphasising the power of visibility.
Jenkins also flagged digital ableism. She said: "Meta blocks ads that include words like ‘disability’ or ‘ethnicity’ - it tanks the views, and people with disabilities are being digitally hidden".This, she argued, is a new battleground for inclusion that brands must actively fight against.
Challenging Size Exclusion
James Corbin, an advocate for size inclusivity, pushed the conversation wider, added: "It’s not just about size, it’s about beauty too. It’s about shade ranges, seeing ourselves reflected. That shift has been huge in recent years, but we’ve still got work to do."
Consciously Curating Culture
Tosin Adeosun, a Researcher, Curator and Fashion Historian, used her session to underline the importance of art and storytelling as tools to explore identity and diaspora. She emphasised that authentic representation doesn’t come from observation, it comes from participation.
"It’s about hearing different perspectives and lived experiences. The way to do that is to hire people who are genuinely from those communities," she said. "That’s how we avoid stereotypes and tropes".
