CAN FEMINISM & FASHION AUTHENTICALLY GO HAND IN HAND, OR ARE THE FORWARD-THINKING FASHION ELITE JUST KIDDING THEMSELVES?
An industry which holds ‘perfection’ next to godliness is naturally dominated by aesthetics and the pursuit of the ‘it’ girl. These concepts and their accompanying suffocating pressures on women, not to mention the issues of misogyny and hyper sexualisation that go with them, are the very things that feminism pushes against. Can feminism and fashion authentically go hand in hand?
Cast your eye to the top of the luxury fashion brand pyramid and you find overwhelming male domination within creative director positions, from Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel to Olivier Rousteing at Balmain. Why do we so widely accept men telling women how to dress? Sure we have the likes of Phoebe Philo, Diane Von Furstenburg and Vivienne Westwood to shut up the critics who cry ‘sexism!’, but female
"Once we stop viewing women’s fashion through the male gaze; we remove the barrier between fashion and feminism."
designers have yet to be recognised on a par with their male counterparts in the industry. Male designers have taken home the CFDA Womenswear Award 13 out of 18 times, whilst a woman has never won the Menswear Award. Whilst this may come as a shock to some who believe the industry to be progressive and diverse, feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez begs to differ, stating ‘we can expect these sort of statistics whilst women continue to only make up 13% of news headlines’. We need look no further than the examples of Rick Owens ‘human backpacks’ and Karl Lagerfeld’s headline-grabbing ‘feminist’ protest to support this statistic. Whilst Lagerfeld’s example appears to promote feminism, we have to ask the question - is Chanel just paying lip-service to a trend (the lifeblood of the industry)? Is this display purely to gain column inches, and therefore sales, rather than the designers desire to promote feminism? Lets not forget Lagerfeld’s comments on Adele being ‘a little too fat’ and that it is ‘not acceptable for women to be overweight’.
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Moving forward, as a fashion student and avid supporter of sexual equality myself, I believe my ‘generation z’ are creating an inclusive, innovative and extremely open-minded future that will allow feminism and fashion to coexist harmoniously. 78% of young fashion creatives expressed their support of feminism when quizzed on it - proof that feminists can like clothes too. As Virginia Woolf famously observed, clothes have ‘more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us’. They can be used as a vessel to enhance and promote our beliefs, rather than to contradict them. A feminist’s relationship with fashion is about the wearer, not the onlooker, and as Criado-Perez states, ‘this shift in focus…is key to feminist fashion’. It’s about how those patent heeled boots and glossy violet lipstick make you feel empowered and sexy, not if they appeal to the opposite sex. The focus is on the endorphins released in the wearer, not the testosterone of the observer. Once we stop viewing women’s fashion through the lens of the male gaze, we remove the barrier between fashion and feminism.
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This article was written for XX/XY magazine insert, view the full publication here​
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Marker comments:
"Excellent in many ways. A true call-to-action tone of voice, intelligent approach, clear opinions…a stimulating read."
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