Frequently – and wrongfully – fashion is seen as superficial and exploitative. However, it is not rare that fashion designers touch upon graver topics, making deep, even if unintended commentaries about politics, culture and society. We take a look at five political fashion creatives who went beyond the nice and the pretty in their works.
Alexander McQueen SS 2001 Voss
Alexander Lee McQueen
Often accused of misogyny, Alexander Lee McQueen stated, nevertheless, that his collections are made to empower women by turning them into strong and menacing creatures. Though constantly focusing on the victim (with the Highland Rape collection or the one dedicated to Jack the Ripper, to name a few) McQueen sought to make her look powerful. On the other hand, he seemed to be intent on making the audience at his shows feel uncomfortable. His 2001 show entitled “Voss” is one example, as the designer made press and buyers stare at their mirrored selves for nearly an hour before the show started. The notorious “Voss” dwelled on issues of mental health and insanity, aggressively questioning the boundaries of normality.
Hussein Chalayan SS 1998, 1997 Burka show
Hussein Chalayan
Hussein Chalayan is one of the cleverest fashion designers alive. When he is not experimenting with technology, he is engaged with issues of gender, religion and culture. In his now iconic 1997 collection, Chalayan challenged taboos by presenting a collection of niqabs varying in length from the one conventionally long to just a headscarf that left the naked body uncovered. Chalayan’s show was a witty if controversial comment on social and cultural acceptability of women and the constant scrutiny of the female body and image.
Dior Haute Couture SS00, images courtesy of Pinterest
John Galliano
John Galliano is a visionary who by appropriating social and historical issues creates discussions that extend well beyond the fashion world. The British designer also has a penchant for spectacular historicism and eccentricity, as Dior’s famous couture collection from 2000 showed. Inspired by homeless people, the collection is remembered for baggy clothes decorated with torn linings, accessorised with whiskey bottles, tin cups and safety pins. Like a lot of things made by Galliano, the collection produced a turbulent and controversial reaction making the New York Times wonder: “So which is worse? A Paris fashion designer who wants to look at the homeless as aesthetic objects, or a New York mayor who does not want to look at them at all?”
Photos: Jean-Claude Coutausse
Martin Margiela
Margiela’s very first and one of the most memorable collection was staged on a playground on the outskirts of Paris. The collection consisted of the deconstructed pieces, that would later become Margiela’s trademark, but the show is remembered for the venue as much as for the clothes. For Martin Margiela, then a young struggling designer, this derelict playground in the 20th arrondissement was the only one he could afford. As Pierre Rogier, Margiela’s press officer at the time, remembers, for Martin it was essential that the residents of the area were invited for the show – “after all, it was their space”. Though not intended as a social commentary, the show provoked mixed reactions as the contrast between the glamorous fashion crowd and the kids from an “underprivileged” area was not to oversee.
Photos: Molly SJ Lowe @mollysjlowe
Demna Gvasalia
Praised for its raw chic, non-conventional design and bold cuts, Balenciaga by Demna Gvasalia is also persistently reminiscent of the post-Soviet 1990s. Gvasalia’s collections evoke the epoch of the economic instability, political uncertainty and painful disappointment in the Soviet ideals. The gigantic bags, for instance, allude to the early 1990s shuttle traders and the IKEA business model, turning the democratisation of fashion on its head.