Beyond the Runway: Joan Smalls and the Fight for Industry Accountability

Joan Smalls has navigated the fashion industry’s upper echelons for years, yet she has consistently refused to let her platform go to waste. Rather than accepting the status quo of a business that often prioritizes aesthetic uniformity over genuine inclusion, she has repeatedly confronted brands, agencies, and publications over systemic discrimination.

Her activism began early, as when a modeling agent once suggested her teeth were a hurdle to success, explicitly citing her ethnicity as the reason for the difficulty. Smalls later exposed this hypocrisy, noting that designers often hide behind the vague concept of an "aesthetic" to justify hiring only one type of model for consecutive seasons. This pattern of speaking out continued in 2024, when she publicly called out an IMG Models manager for allegedly using a derogatory slur regarding her Puerto Rican heritage, demanding accountability in a space that claims to be inclusive.

Beyond racial grievances, Smalls has fought against the erasure of her identity. In 2016, she corrected Maxim after the magazine misidentified her as another model, highlighting a pervasive industry trend of failing to distinguish between models of color. She has also challenged personal assumptions about her heritage, asserting her pride in her mixed Black and Puerto Rican background. Her most pointed critique came in 2020 with her "We Are Not A Trend" video essay, where she dismantled the performative nature of corporate social media activism. By pledging half her annual salary to Black Lives Matter, Smalls signaled that for her, true change requires more than empty gestures.