Clare Waight Keller, a renowned fashion designer and advocate for women in leadership, and Maria Cornejo, a celebrated New York designer known for her timeless clothing, dive into the challenges women face in the fashion industry. They discuss the paradox of women as primary consumers yet absent from leadership roles. Clare shares her experiences with systemic biases and maternity leave struggles, while Maria emphasizes creating clothing for real women and the importance of hiring women to change industry culture. Together, they champion for greater gender parity in fashion.
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insights INSIGHT
Narrative Shift After Design School
Clare Waight Keller observes that women dominate design school but are underrepresented in senior roles because narratives shift after graduation.
She argues men are framed as change-makers while women are cornered into stability and commercial aesthetics.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Ignored When A Male Partner Arrived
Maria Cornejo recounts being ignored in Japan once her male partner arrived, showing industry misogyny.
She says women designers often make practical clothes that aren’t seen as Instagrammable or sensational.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Creating A Maternity Policy At Gucci
Clare Waight Keller describes lacking a maternity policy while pregnant at Gucci and helping establish one.
She feared returning to work and had to accelerate her career before starting a family.
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Collectively, Clare Waight Keller and Maria Cornejo have over two decades of experience in the fashion industry. Waight Keller’s impressive career includes roles at Givenchy, Chloé and Gucci — and today, she serves as creative director at Uniqlo. Cornejo’s New York–based label, founded nearly three decades ago, counts Michelle Obama and Christy Turlington Burns among its most devoted fans.
From deeply entrenched gender biases to the fear of returning to work after giving birth, women face a number of systemic barriers to reaching senior leadership positions in the fashion industry, insiders say. Today, some women designers have found success launching their own labels — and when they do land leadership roles at major houses, often make it a priority to create opportunities for other women, which remain few and far between.
At the VOICES 10th anniversary, Waight Keller and Cornejo speak with senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young about what it’s like to work in an industry where women are the muses and chief customers, but the top commercial and creative roles are dominated by men.
Key Insights:
Clare Waight Keller says that the inequalities between men and women in fashion are driven in part by the narrative that “men are often seen as the implementers of big change, and women of stability, and so with stability we’re often also cornered into a commercial sense of aesthetic.” Both Waight Keller and Cornejo push back against this notion, saying that women aren’t less creative but simply more considerate of how real women want to dress.
Maria Cornejo feels that “there’s a big disconnect in fashion… from what's instagrammable and what is actual reality … all the women I know who have independent businesses… we’re making clothes that women wear.”
Both designers say they have encountered inequities as women in fashion, prompting Waight Keller to intentionally assemble an all-women team at Uniqlo. “Women add so much richness into the conversation of clothing, we offer a completely different perspective which is equally powerful and equally relevant,” she says.
The Debrief 
