Fashion Month's Diversity Report

(Image: Getty Images - Ashish SS17)

This season has been declared the most diverse, according to The Fashion Spot's bi-annual in-depth Diversity Report. The report examined the 8,832 model appearances featured in the 299 fashion shows from New York, London, Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks this September, and found more than 25.4 per cent of the model castings were non-white.

For the "first time in recent history" more than 25 per cent of the castings included colour. New York had the highest diversity rate, which was evident at Yeezy Season 4 show with models of colour making up 97 per cent of the casting - then followed Paris, London and Milan. London had the most significant rise in models of diversity, growing from 19.9 per cent to 23.5 per cent from AW16, with Ashish's Indian-themed show the third most diverse of the entire season.

This season also saw the most women over 50 on the catwalk ever - 13 women over 50 walked in the SS17 shows. Eight of these appearances came from New York and the main talking point came from Milan, when 72 year-old model Lauren Hutton closed Bottega Veneta arm-in-arm with Gigi Hadid.

These figures show that there have been some improvements over the last few seasons but the figures are still low, with some key shows - The Row and Junya Watanabe - having all-white castings - but they are moving in the right direction. Hopefully in a few seasons time we will see over half of the models vary in diversity and we're not just taking about race, we want to see all sizes, shapes, ages, everything. Fashion should be all inclusive and not just for certain people.