Time Sensitive: Bethann Hardison on Pushing Fashion Forward and Toward “Complete Diversity”
Bethann Hardison happily accepts the role of the “grandmama.” Over the past five decades—first working a range of jobs in New York City’s Garment District in the 1960s; then as a model and producer in 1970s, collaborating with fashion designers including Willi Smith, Stephen Burrows, and Issey Miyake, and walking in the historic Battle of Versailles show of 1973; then as a pioneering talent and model agent who ran her firm, Bethann Management, from 1984–1996—Hardison has, with great finesse, risen to become among the most vital voices in fashion. A self-described “advocate” who currently serves as Gucci’s executive advisor for global equity and cultural engagement, she is a powerhouse figure who has not only reshaped conversations around diversity and anti-racism industry-wide, but has actively pushed for and, in turn, made change in terms of representation, from advertising campaigns to editorial shoots to runway shows.
Hardison brings a nuanced, lived approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion, one that is wholly her own, and one that she has practiced from a young age as the independent-minded, Brooklyn-born daughter of an intellectual imam father and a “cool,” supportive, humorous mother. “At the end of the day,” she says on this episode of Time Sensitive, “I’m the quiet storm that’s going to make sure that things change in some way.” This has always been her way. With subtle (and sometimes, not-so-subtle) force—and through projects such as the Black Girls Coalition, which she founded in 1988 with her friend the model Iman, and the Diversity Coalition, which she started in 2013 by calling out certain brands for not using any models of color in their runway shows—Hardison has stepped up again and again, speaking truth to power, against what was and in certain respects remains a long, ongoing lack of representation.
This work—a “life,” she calls it, not a career—has earned her a matriarchal place in the upper echelons of the fashion world, with recognitions such as the 2014 CFDA Founder’s Award and a 2022 Housing Works Groundbreaker Award. A wise seer and doer, Hardison continues, at age 79, to fight the good fight. It’s a fight, she admits, that she has never been particularly ambitious about getting after; it’s simply something she feels she was put on this earth to do. “Me,” she says, “I’m just along on the road. The car comes by. I get in the car. We go someplace. It’s as simple as that.”
Soon, Hardison’s wisdom and groundbreaking journey will come to the fore in book and film form: She’s currently at work on a memoir about her life and all the people she has met along the way, including the late novelist Toni Morrison, who was a confidante and close friend of hers (and in fact long urged her to write her story). A documentary about her path in fashion and diversity work by the filmmaker and director Frédéric Tcheng (Halston, Dior And I) is also underway.
On this episode, Hardison talks with Spencer about her “queen-ager” energy, her glass-half-full philosophies around death and dying, her efforts to call out fashion industry racism, and her rational, deep-seated concerns for the future.