Rise: Fashion & Activism Magazine

CLOTHES HAVE LONG BEEN
A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
For people of color, women,
members of the LGBTQ
community, immigrants,
and minorities, the election
and its aftermath saw most
questioning the stability
of their rights – as well as
how fashion could matter in a time like this.
But designers weren’t ready to be counted
out of the conversation just yet. Rather, the
best collections responded with political
commentary, staging presentations that
stood against the administration or at least
clapped back against its claims.
Calling out ignorance towards the refugee
crisis, Gypsy Sport designer Rio Uribe
preceded his AW17 collection with a plea for
showgoers to acknowledge the oft-ignored
plight of homeless refugees. Likewise, Mara
Hoffman’s AW17 show opened with a speech
by Tamika D. Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Bob
Bland, and Carmen Perez, the co-chairs
of the Women’s March on Washington.
For both designers, their collections were
catalysts for drawing attention to a greater
cause.“I was inspired to do a show and use
it as a microphone for something bigger,”
Hoffman said backstage. “These women just
pulled off the biggest human rights protest
in the history of the country. The subject
matter is a little heavy, but now’s the time to
talk about it.”
Still, most designers decided on a show-don’ttell
approach using slogan tees. While SS17
was a season of speeches for Prabal Gurung,
who reprinted the words of Susan B. Anthony
and other prominent women along silk
dresses and on knit sweaters, AW17 was far
more succinct. The designer closed his show
with a parade of models in declaratory t-shirts
reading, “I am an immigrant,” “Revolution has
no borders,” and the ever-popular “The future
is female.” In similar expressions, Creatures
of Comfort and Christian Siriano peppered
their collections with commentary: their
wearable responses to Trump respectively
read “We Are All Human Beings” and “People
are People.”
While the slogan tee rightfully saw new
life this season, using a t-shirt as political
speech is nothing new. Katharine Hamnett
pioneered sans serif on cotton as a statement
in 1983, sending anti-war rhetoric down the
runway reading “Choose Life,” “Stop Acid
Rain,” and “Education Not Missiles”. In fact,
for most designers this season these shirts
are punctuated statements in a long line of
otherwise commercial collections. For others
like Hamnett, activism is woven throughout
their careers.
Both the late Alexander McQueen and
Vivienne Westwood have repeatedly used
fame and fashion as a platform to shock,
surprise, and speak up. In 1998, McQueen
guest-edited Dazed’s Fashion-Able issue,
which showcased models with physical
disabilities and acknowledged the industry’s
relationship with ableism. And long before
the embrace of environmentalism, McQueen
staged his ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection in a
scrap heap of his old sets, commenting on
consumerism, waste, and fashion’s potential
Image By Nick Knight
role within the two. Punk’s reigning monarch,
Westwood and her anti-establishment antics
have called attention to everything from
animal rights to anti-terror laws. Most
recently, yet another collection in a handful
calling for a revolution, her SS18 Men’s
collection saw trash-stuffed stockings as
allusions to climate change.
These two spoke up before #GenerationWoke
became consumers and when activism could
hurt a brand’s commercial viability. Likewise,
when Kenneth Cole released his AIDS
awareness campaign in 1985, he challenged
the blind eye most pointed to the virus and
risked marginalizing himself and his brand.
Cole’s activism came in reaction the death of
David Brugnoli, Kenneth Cole Productions’
head of visual design, and today the designer
posits that activism still works best when
6
FASHION & ACTIVISM