Clare Waight Keller, a renowned fashion designer and creative director at Uniqlo, and Maria Cornejo, a New York-based designer known for her timeless pieces, explore the challenges women face in the fashion industry. They discuss the paradox of women as the primary consumers yet underrepresented in leadership roles. Clare shares her experiences navigating maternity policies at Gucci, while Maria champions the creativity of practical, wearable designs. Both emphasize the importance of hiring women and creating opportunities, hinting at a hopeful shift towards gender equity in fashion.
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insights INSIGHT
Early Talent Leak In Fashion
Women dominate fashion school graduations but lose representation in senior roles due to shifting narratives.
Men are perceived as change-makers while women are boxed into stability and commercial aesthetics.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Ignored Once A Male Partner Arrived
Maria Cornejo recounted being invisible to Japanese clients once her male partner arrived.
She argued industry leaders often hold misogynistic views and undervalue women's design work as 'not sensational.'
question_answer ANECDOTE
Pioneering A Maternity Policy
Clare Waight Keller described lacking a maternity policy while working at Gucci and becoming a pioneer to set one up.
She highlighted how absence of policy forces women to choose between career momentum and 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.
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