EVENT: Inclusive Beauty and Fashion Day - June 26, 2025
Join us for a day of dialogue, insight, and connection at Inclusive Beauty and Fashion, an international conference that brings together thought leaders, researchers, creatives, and industry professionals to examine the pressing need for greater inclusivity in the beauty and fashion sectors.
Organised by the Chair Diversity in Beauty – IFM x MANE, this event comes at a moment when the promise of deep cultural transformation within these industries remains largely unfulfilled — and, in some cases, may be at risk of stalling. While diversity is frequently showcased in marketing, the structural changes required to enable genuine representation are complex, and progress has been slower than anticipated.
The day will focus on key topics such as:
- Changing Beauty: Radical Revolution or Gradual Transformation?
- What Black Consumers Really See in Beauty Marketing
- Authentic Representation: From Ideal to Reality
- Instagram, Gender, and Diverse Body Representation
- Facing the Realities of Diversity: Progress, Setbacks, and Challenges
- How Inclusive Brands Impact People with Disabilities
Special guest:
We are pleased to welcome Thando Hopa — South African model, lawyer, and advocate widely recognised for her work in promoting inclusive beauty — who will open the day with a keynote address.
Whether you work in fashion, beauty, media, or academia, or are simply interested in how beauty reflects and influences society, this event offers an opportunity to engage with key issues and voices shaping the future of these industries.
Programme:
→ 9:00 am until 1:00 pm
◼ Welcome & coffee
Networking session to meet the speakers and participants.
◼ Roundtable: Changing Beauty – Radical Revolution or Gradual Transformation?
Speaker: Thando Hopa, Model and lawyer
◼ Conference: Beyond the Surface: What Black Consumers Really See in Beauty Marketing
Speakers: Dr Aurore Bardey (Professor, Burgundy School of Business), Titiana Amunkaké (Product & Brand expert)
◼ Roundtable: The difficulties of authentic representation
Speakers: Haweya Mohamed, Ammin Youssouf (Founders, The Colors)
◼ Conference: Not Just a Pretty Picture: A Transformative Lens on Gender & Diversity
Speaker: Dr Nacima Ourahmoune (Professor, Kedge Business School)
→ 2:30 pm until 6:00 pm
◼ Conference: Fashion Meets Reality: Body Diversity Between Representation and Resistance
Speaker: Maxime Patte (CEO & Co-founder, @Veesual)
◼ Conference: Instagram and the inclusion of diverse body and appearance-attributes
Speaker: Dr Phaedra Longhurst (Associate lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge)
◼ Conference: Facing the Realities of Diversity: Progress, Setbacks & Challenges
Speaker: Issima Oniangué (General Manager Makeup & Interbeauty Brands, Sub-Saharan Africa Zone – L'Oréal)
◼ Student Presentations
Projects presented by the students from the 2024/2025 Research Challenge
◼ Closing & Summary of discussions
Practical information:
June 26, 2025 – from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm
Institut Français de la Mode
34 Quai d’Austerlitz, 75013 Paris
Free entry upon registration. Limited seats are available.
The conference will be held in English.
In June 2024, Mane and IFM partnered to launch a research and teaching chair entitled "Diversity & Inclusion in Beauty", led by researcher and professor Caroline Ardelet. This chair explores beauty as a subjective and constructed concept, shaped by norms, beliefs, and cultural practices — and therefore subject to significant individual and cultural variation. It aims to promote inclusive business practices in the fashion and beauty sectors by encouraging collective reflection on how beauty is conceptualized and represented across cultures.
