Yesterday, hundreds of Nike staff marched across its Beaverton, Oregon, campus calling for the company to better support and empower female athletes and employees. The protest was prompted by the reopening of a building named for track coach Alberto Salazar, who ran Nike’s Oregon Project and who has been accused by female athletes of physical and mental abuse under his leadership.
While there are plenty of women in middle management roles in fashion, just 12.5% of clothing companies in the Fortune 1000 today have female CEOs. That’s less than companies in the aerospace and defense industries, which are about 20% female-led, and financial services, where 18% of companies have women as their chief executives.
For International Women’s Day today, Nike released its latest version of the Curry 6 sneaker, in a color combo of purples and white, and more importantly, featuring a lining designed by Morrison. It shows two girls playing basketball, surrounded by phrases such as “Girls Hoop Too,” “Girl Power,” “Be Fearless,” and “Be the Change.”
Vogue’s publisher, Condé Nast, has recently implemented its own 18-and-up policy, after the onslaught of #MeToo revelations led it to create a new global vendor code of conduct. The policy includes provisions to make sure models are working in safe environments and stipulates that no model younger than 18 will be shot for editorials, unless the person is the subject of an article, “in which case the model will be both chaperoned and styled in an age-appropriate manner.”