While Vancouver Fashion Week attracts international designers from diverse backgrounds, some of those creators hail from countries where conversations about representation are rare or long overdue and the word “woke” has yet to be exhausted. European runways severely lag behind North American ones in plus-size representation. And, according to Japan Today, in Japan and Korea, “ super-thin is still in .” Even if conversations about racial diversity on runways are starting in non-Western markets, as Business of Fashion puts it, “This has not resulted in a significant rise in the number of models of colour walking the runways,” especially outside of North America. In other words, designers showing at VFW can be more focused on personal tastes rooted in their cultural norms than on challenging antiquated beauty standards, and that can translate into conflict between the designers, models, and VFW itself. The control VFW gives to its designers is sometimes in stark contrast to its progressive ideals. For example, when I ask Pin-Yu Chen about her choice of models for her boyfriend revenge show, her translator says bluntly, “She prefers slim guys and girls.”