TW: mentions of sexual assault
A few weeks ago during a conversation with a friend, the topic of our favourite high fashion designers came up. While listing some of the brilliant creators that came to mind, I came to a sad realisation; most of them were men. Of course, icons such as Vivienne Westwood, Miuccia Prada (my absolute favourite), Phoebe Philo, and Anna Sui were named, but they were still outnumbered by the large number of men. The irony is that almost all of these designers focus entirely, or mostly, on womenswear.
Despite having a majority female consumer base (women spend three times more than men on clothes), female fashion designers only take up 40.2 % of fashion designers. That number is even much, much, lower for women of colour. Moreover, some of the fashion houses that were initially founded by women, are now led by men. Paris and Milan have the lowest population of female designers during Fashion Week, with women accounting for 37 % and 31 % of designers respectively. Female designers are also under more scrutiny and face more criticism from the media and fans than male designers.
Let's take look at the house of Chanel, for instance. Founded by Coco Chanel, the French brand is one of the oldest and most prestigious fashion houses of all time. I personally believe Coco Chanel herself does not deserve much acclamation, since she was openly a Nazi, and I have a hard time separating the art from the artist. Karl Lagerfeld on the other hand, revived the brand and saved it from its near-death status. Having had a few successful decades in the book, by mid 2010s Lagerfeld lacked the enthusiasm and creativity he once had. The last few shows before his untimely death were quite repetitive and uninspired. Of course, he was incredibly talented, fashion critics and journalists made sure to praise him, but the shows were lacklustre collections set in shiny locations. Like the Spring 2018 collection; who would even wear a tweed crop top? Then came Virginie Viard, Largerfeld’s right hand of over 30 years and successor. Reading some of the opinions from her first few collections, I realised that some Chanel fans and critics were completely unfair in the way they regarded her as a designer. A blogger at FashionWeekDaily even called her work “a bunch of ill-fitting tweed sacks.” I find that statement to be wrong, mostly because her work is so similar to Lagerfeld’s. To blame Viard for the downfall of Chanel is biased because the brand has been going down since well before Lagerfeld’s death. He was a sales genius as he put most of his efforts into designing shiny accessories, belts and sunglasses and the classic leather handbags, and he put on a brilliant show completed with the most expensive runway which once even included a space rocket (Fall 2017) to awe the front row; the clothes however, were nothing short of a bunch of ill-fitting tweeds, as some may call it. His opinions were ill-fitting as well; many women called him ruthless and cruel to work with, especially those who didn't societal beauty standards. It was no industry secret that he body shamed his models to no end, but I doubt that was mentioned in his eulogy.
Another example would be the love triangle between Celine, Hedi Slimane, and Phoebe Philo. Philo’s collections at Celine were the elegant, empowering breath of fresh air during each fashion month, a gift that just kept on giving so imagine my surprise when she was replaced by no other than Slimane! Slimane’s dark silhouettes with the glittery heroin chic look are too 90s, too similar to his old days at Saint Laurent, to deserve any attention in 2021. His men’s collections have arguably been better, perhaps because it doesn’t reinforce the same ultra-skinny, pale, drug-addled stereotype that seems to be present in all his womenswear shows.
Celine under Phoebe Philo:
Celine under Hedi Slimane:
Hedi Slimane's YSL:
I believe 2021 is the year that we do some spring cleaning around fashion. It seems that some designers are begging to have their careers as well as their platforms taken away. The fact that Dolce & Gabbana still manages to have customers after everything they have done (opposing same sex couples parenting, calling China "ignorant dirty smelling mafia", bullying many celebrities online, and also tax evasion, to just name a few) is nothing short of scandalous. Philipp Plein had another scandal around homophobia, and his designs are absolutely horrid, yet he is still in business as well. Recent uncovering of the sexual assault allegations against famed designer and celebrity-favourite Alexander Wang shows just how common it is for powerful designers to take advantage of people around them without suffering any consequences. Of course, this does not mean that women in power cannot be equally abusive, and they are not to be defended if any story of misconduct comes out, but for now, we need to do everything in our power to de-platform those designers who have clearly crossed a line, and maybe give some talented women their fashion week slot instead.
While I might might sound harsh to some, in the hypothesis that we can agree to disagree, I think it raises important questions worth considering when it comes to fashion and art in general. To what extent are artists' beliefs dissociable from their work? Does an art piece lose in value if its creator was considered to be a "bad" person? But most of all, how come female artists' work are less valued than men's?
Bella Niavarani
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