Designer Ditches Models In Favor Of Dancers At Paris Fashion Week

If you haven’t been keeping up with all the Fashion Week happenings around the world, don’t worry, because we have the best stuff you need to know about! This week was Paris Fashion Week and the show that caused the biggest stir and got the most attention was from American designer Rick Owens.

His show was a very timely and awesome display of how women’s bodies are all unique and different, and that should not only be celebrated but reflected on the runways at fashion week (dammit!).

Instead of casting the regular autonomous, skinny models that every designer does, he chose to go a different route and create a show that is probably the best display of body diversity of any fashion week this season.

He recruited a group of African Step Dancers, flew them all the way from the United States to Paris to cause the biggest disrupt of the hoity toity Paris front row, and it rocked our world! The step dancers stomped their way through Rick’s Spring 2014 ‘Ready To Wear’ women’s collection which will no doubt forever be synonymous with strong women and a great show.

It is certainly an answer, and solution to the issue of lack of diversity on the runway, which Supermodel Naomi Campbell has been very outspoken about during New York Fashion week recently. At least at NYFW they can take credit for showcasing their very first plus size runway show, which will hopefully open the floodgates for more diverse designers in this elite crowd.

Anyway, back to the awesome PFW Rick Owens show and how it makes us have faith in fashion again. The step dancers were from a group called Step with Momentum out of new york who use strong dance moves from a mixture of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps. It originates from Africa and the Caribbean.

The Paris-based Rick told style.com backstage that his show, which he admits will probably be his biggest show ever, sends out an important message to the fashion community. He says it was an exercise in working with different body types to enable people to think in broader terms.

“How do I make it as accessible as possibly to everybody? Instead of creating an exclusive fashion world. let’s try and make it as inclusive as I possibly can.” Can we get a “hell yeah” anyone!

Watch the full show below to see what all the fuss is about, and see these badass women in action, shaking up the attitudes of the uptight elite. Oh, and in case you are wondering about the reason behind the angry scowls on their face as they perform, one youtube commenter put it best:

“I’m pretty sure that if for the last 60+ years they’ve been telling you you’re not thin enough, white enough or beautiful enough to partake of fashion, you’d have the same face.”