The fashion world isn’t known for its political engagement. It’s an industry built on luxury and commerce, and the people who can actually afford to buy clothes straight off the runway aren’t always very liberal. Today, even the industry’s rebels seem quite comfortable within the establishment. Despite her environmental activism, Vivienne Westwood, punk’s fairy godparent, has happily accepted an OBE that was later advanced into a damehood – God Save the Queen, indeed.
Fashion is one of the most elite industries in the world, with the majority of editors, designers and business owners come from privileged families and benefit from nepotism and the intern culture, where those who can afford to work for years for free, get ahead
One of the most elite industries in the world, with the majority come from privileged families and benefit from nepotism and the intern culture
2016: The Post-Truth Era
Last year gave us Brexit, Trump and a rightward drift in many European countries – Germany, France, the Netherlands and Hungary among others, seriously endangering the liberal European project. This forced a usually apathetic industry to respond, and the designers behind the AW17 collections on show at the men’s London fashion week this January did not hold back.
Press releases feyly referencing nature or art-house films were replaced with direct political commentary. Christopher Shannon’s read “This is the first collection post-Brexit, post-Trump”, and what followed was a discourse on the potential breakdown of global ties in the British fashion industry, broken flags painted on the faces of the models, and recognisable designer labels slyly doctored. CK became CS with the subtitle ‘”Constant Stress’” and Hugo Boss became ‘”LOSS International’”.
Designer Matthew Miller presented ‘Fear Itself’, a collection featuring military-inspired harnesses, warrior makeup and black uniforms, created for the “disenchanted, disenfranchised and disengaged’ to protect oneself in the “post-truth era”.
The New Diversity Champions
Fashion is routinely criticised for being racist, and rightly so. In November last year, Victoria’s Secret “fashion show”, perhaps the most popular fashion event globally featured an abundance of white models. One even sported a Native American headdress, a tone-deaf response to issues of cultural appropriation. Countless other examples illustrate this fact, but suffice to say, the business has a long way to go.
Nevertheless, some designers are using their work to protest racism. Last year’s LVMH-prize winner, 25-year-old designer Grace Wales Bonner, gave a show where Senegalese street style, and a set inspired by the Notting Hill Carnival celebrated the first migrants to settle in West London during the Forties. “Grace Wales Bonner is one of the most inspiring people in fashion, she offers an another version of black male identity,” says Margot Bowman, a 28-year-old fashion illustrator from London whose poppy new media graphics are sought after by the likes of Topshop and Converse.
Despite her commercial success, Bowman is unafraid of speaking up. Recently, she hosted ‘Identify’, a workshop at the Tate Modern, where attendees could create a new hybrid identity based on their geographical, spiritual and personal touch points, rather than the usual limited options of race and nationality.
Bowman has also designed an ‘art computer game’, where the player makes a raft on a sea of ruined of mattresses, sneaker boxes and European flags. Alongside obvious connotations of displacement, she says this project was also a comment on, “How the liberal ideal is ‘power to all people’, and that you can be your own person, but you still need to be respectful of others.”
Also in London for AW17, fashion designer Martine Rose took things one step further by setting up a catwalk in the middle of Seven Sisters market. Surrounded by Afro barbers and Venezuelan street food stands, the show embraced the culture of the local community – a solid two fingers to the industry’s tendency to appropriate and white wash.
A solid two fingers to the industry’s tendency to appropriate and white wash
British designer, Phoebe English says of the current political climate “you can’t work during times like these, and not feel creatively affected, your work is a reflection of the times that we exist in”. She thinks that this will have a mobilising effect, saying, “It will birth a much needed, more active and engaged generation”.
The Old Radicals
These dissenting voices are refreshing, but fashion has always had its radicals. One of the grand couturiers, Yves Saint Laurent had close ties with the revolutionary left. In 1988, he presented his a collection at an annual soiree arranged by L’Humanité, formerly the organ of the French Communist Party. The show was an homage to the under-represented workers behind haute couture, and the hosts hoped the event would start conversations about the role of high-fashion. It is also said that Saint Laurent and his partner, noted socialist Pierre Bergé, made the link between fashion and politics through their involvement in art, specifically the work of Pablo Picasso and Joseph Fernand Henri Léger.
Leftwing philosophers Roland Barthes and Jean-Paul Sartre were also preoccupied with the significance of clothing. Barthes wrote about it in his seminal cultural study, Mythologies, and Sartre’s journal Les Temps Modernes, contained many a style article – proof that fashion has often been taken seriously as both an intellectual discipline and way of shaking up the status quo.
Fashion is about expression and the body, and the body is always political
Although it might seem otherwise, Haute couture’s revolutionary potentials exceed the possibilities offered by mock-feminist activities such as Karl Lagerfeld’s SS15 in Paris, where models toted placards emblazoned with ‘Ladies First’, and chanted “What do we want? Tweed!” Fashion is about expression and the body, and the body is always political. It is the principle means through which power exerts itself, whether it be police violence, anti-abortion laws, or austerity-induced poverty. In 18th century revolutionary France, the link between fashion and politics was made manifest in the uprising of the sans culottes – literally “without breaches”. And today, designers are returning to the spirit forged by the Paris commune.
Individualism is out, Collectivism is in
Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl are the Berlin-based womenswear designers behind Namilia, a brand who show in New York, and are a part of the VFILES alumni, the city’s coolest collective.
In their SS17 show, inspired by alternative youth culture, the designers gave out manifestos entitled You’re Just a Toy, featuring images of America’s new president tied up and hanging from a ceiling, with the commandment “Take Down Trump”. Li enthuses about making political statements with his work. “I’m 27 and we grew up in a culture of individualism,” He says. “It wasn’t cool to be part of a movement, [but] now it feels exciting to be in a group and have a joint voice, like at the recent women’s march”.
“It wasn’t cool to be part of a movement, [but] now it feels exciting to be in a group“
As previously noted, Generation Y has previously shied away from activism. This has been evident with feminism, where Western millennial woman didn’t feel the need to identify as a feminist. The gender war, in their privileged world, had been fought and won, and politicized labels seemed old-fashioned.
Margot Bowman disagrees. Echoing Li’s opinion that her generation was obsessed with individualism, she believes collective spirit is a good thing. “The fundamentals of storytelling haven’t changed since Greek mythology,” she says. “We build empathy by putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. The internet came along and is the complete opposite to that. It’s narcissistic, whilst bastardising words like ‘connect’ and ‘community’ when really it is only ‘what about me'”.
The internet came along and is the complete opposite to that. It’s narcissistic, whilst bastardising words like ‘connect’ and ‘community’ when really it is only ‘what about me’
The Age Divide
Young people voted overwhelmingly against Brexit and against Trump, furthering a sense of generational betrayal. This age divide is also evident in the fashion crowd who are making a stand. It’s not the establishment who are putting themselves on the line – young designers are as well. “No one under 35 wanted Brexit or Trump. Our generation is trapped under all this solidified fat waiting for it to shift,” muses Bowman succinctly.
Culture is Freedom
“No man is an island. No country by itself” wrote John Donne in his 1624 poem, Wolfgang Tillmans last year transformed it into the slogan for his pro-EU poster prior the UK’s once-in-a-lifetime vote. The creative industry’s foremost visual protest against leaving the supranational European body, Tillmans offered the poster as a free download from his website. This open platform idea, common in the tech world, is unusual in fashion, and the German photographer has sparked a dialogue about how the industry can become a vehicle for social change.
Reflecting on his experience of watching the US presidential election, Li agrees that it’s time to take protests off the runway and into the public sphere. “We did what we could, it’s not just about aesthetics anymore,” he says. London designer Phoebe English is similarly minded. “At the moment fashion is the medium that I am working with. So right here, and right now, it is the most immediate response I can have”. Ultimately, this movement toward radicalizing fashion for ends greater than itself is something Bowman views as to fashion and the aesthetic disciplines in general. “Culture is important,” she says. “It helps you experiment with your identity, and that is what freedom is”.
“Culture is important,” she says. “It helps you experiment with your identity, and that is what freedom is”
The Poetic Protest
Fashion has become a vital political mouthpiece. This much we know. But will this politicisation amount to anything? Perhaps. Labels like Supreme have a cult following, and as high-fashion and streetwear move closer, the pop-star appeal of brands will increase. In short, they have access to minds of young people that establishment figures do not possess. Millennials are not going to listen to out-of-touch politicians, but they might heed fashion designers speaking their heavily visual language.
Millennials are not going to listen to out-of-touch politicians, but they might heed fashion designers speaking their heavily visual language.
A good example of this is Russia’s Gosha Rubchinskiy. Although known throughout the world, his clothes have a special significance for young people in Moscow, St Petersburg and beyond. Unlike the authoritarian rightwing tone of the Kremlin, his designs, mixing elements of East and West, past and present, high and low, signify a playful, open, anti-elitist idea of the future Russia, his PACCBET label meaning ‘New Dawn’. Recently, he even hinted at his desire to shake up the business by asking journalists attending his AW17 in Kalliningrad to fund their own trips – which they did, eagerly. And with the AW17 womenswear shows around the corner, the year brims with hope, proving that there’s more to be excited about in fashion than just hemlines.
Taken from Sleek 53