CLOTHES HAVE LONG BEENA CATALYST FOR CHANGEFor people of color, women,members of the LGBTQcommunity, immigrants,and minorities, the electionand its aftermath saw mostquestioning the stabilityof their rights – as well ashow fashion could matter in a time like this.But designers weren’t ready to be countedout of the conversation just yet. Rather, thebest collections responded with politicalcommentary, staging presentations thatstood against the administration or at leastclapped back against its claims.Calling out ignorance towards the refugeecrisis, Gypsy Sport designer Rio Uribepreceded his AW17 collection with a plea forshowgoers to acknowledge the oft-ignoredplight of homeless refugees. Likewise, MaraHoffman’s AW17 show opened with a speechby Tamika D. Mallory, Linda Sarsour, BobBland, and Carmen Perez, the co-chairsof the Women’s March on Washington.For both designers, their collections werecatalysts for drawing attention to a greatercause.“I was inspired to do a show and useit as a microphone for something bigger,”Hoffman said backstage. “These women justpulled off the biggest human rights protestin the history of the country. The subjectmatter is a little heavy, but now’s the time totalk about it.”Still, most designers decided on a show-don’ttellapproach using slogan tees. While SS17was a season of speeches for Prabal Gurung,who reprinted the words of Susan B. Anthonyand other prominent women along silkdresses and on knit sweaters, AW17 was farmore succinct. The designer closed his showwith a parade of models in declaratory t-shirtsreading, “I am an immigrant,” “Revolution hasno borders,” and the ever-popular “The futureis female.” In similar expressions, Creaturesof Comfort and Christian Siriano pepperedtheir collections with commentary: theirwearable responses to Trump respectivelyread “We Are All Human Beings” and “Peopleare People.”While the slogan tee rightfully saw newlife this season, using a t-shirt as politicalspeech is nothing new. Katharine Hamnettpioneered sans serif on cotton as a statementin 1983, sending anti-war rhetoric down therunway reading “Choose Life,” “Stop AcidRain,” and “Education Not Missiles”. In fact,for most designers this season these shirtsare punctuated statements in a long line ofotherwise commercial collections. For otherslike Hamnett, activism is woven throughouttheir careers.Both the late Alexander McQueen andVivienne Westwood have repeatedly usedfame and fashion as a platform to shock,surprise, and speak up. In 1998, McQueenguest-edited Dazed’s Fashion-Able issue,which showcased models with physicaldisabilities and acknowledged the industry’srelationship with ableism. And long beforethe embrace of environmentalism, McQueenstaged his ‘Horn of Plenty’ collection in ascrap heap of his old sets, commenting onconsumerism, waste, and fashion’s potentialImage By Nick Knightrole within the two. Punk’s reigning monarch,Westwood and her anti-establishment anticshave called attention to everything fromanimal rights to anti-terror laws. Mostrecently, yet another collection in a handfulcalling for a revolution, her SS18 Men’scollection saw trash-stuffed stockings asallusions to climate change.These two spoke up before #GenerationWokebecame consumers and when activism couldhurt a brand’s commercial viability. Likewise,when Kenneth Cole released his AIDSawareness campaign in 1985, he challengedthe blind eye most pointed to the virus andrisked marginalizing himself and his brand.Cole’s activism came in reaction the death ofDavid Brugnoli, Kenneth Cole Productions’head of visual design, and today the designerposits that activism still works best when6FASHION & ACTIVISM
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