Fashion week: seven days in one of four glorious cities providing gorgeous clothes, pretty models, celebrities, parties, and maybe even a scandal or two. New York started off fashion month and it was hardly an exception. It started off with the awful Yeezy Season 4 presentation and the ground-breaking return of Tom Ford and his 70's esque fur-filled beyond spectacular See-Now-Buy-Now collection. Ralph Lauren actually stopped traffic with his western elegance presentation, which was also a Buy-Immediately show with the models walking directly into his store from the runway.
History was made with Anniesa Hasibuan's Spring/Summer 2017 collection, because all of the models wore hijabs. DVF debuted their first collection with Jonathan Saunders as chief creative officer. Some other highlights included the monochrome collections of my dreams provided by Brandon Maxwell and Vera Wang. Additionally, DKNY provided a new take on chic athleisure street wear and Proenza Schouler featured not one social media famous model. And to top it all off, Opening Ceremony held the most diverse show with 50 models from 50 different countries in order to represent the first countries that immigrated to the US.
New York's fashion week also had quite a controversial finale courtesy of the one and only Marc Jacobs. His S/S '17 collection, held at the Hammerstein Ballroom, paid homage to Yayoi Kusama's "Infinity Room" with a Blade Runner inspired night club created by Stefan Beckman. This collection was serving icy intergalactic hippie-glam looks fitted for a rave goddess and it was ah-mazing, I need all of Go-Go esque platform boots. However, the real problem here was the hair which included messy buns made up of faux multi-colored dreadlocks featured on multi-ethnic, but primarily white models.
This culture appropriation sparked debate when Marc Jacobs addressed the criticism directly on Instagram. Instead of talking about how he found inspiration from the trans filmmaker Lana Wachowski he made offensive, tone-deaf comments which were extremely ignorant and continue to fuel the ongoing conversation about the relations between creative inspiration and cultural appropriation. He has since apologized, via Instagram, for his lack of sensitivity and urges everyone to express their feelings, but politely because nothing is gained from hatred.
Nevertheless, this is not a new topic in the fashion industry because time and time again designers find inspiration from around the world and spark outcry because they did not execute their designs correctly or they made comments that are far from politically correct. From Valentino to DSquared2 and John Galliano to Dolce and Gabbana, these designers and brands have created controversy in the past and it will probably continue to happen in the future. So if you are a fan of fashion and deeply appreciate the art that these designers can create, you have to ask yourself if you can essentially ignore ignorance and hatred in order to focus only on the art itself?
In the past, the fashion industry has given a worldwide platform for designers to showcase their talent, as well as provide political commentary. Politics are inherently a part of fashion, but sometimes designers display controversial styles that exemplify what may be interpreted as racism, homophobia, and culture appropriation.
Coco Chanel was arguably extremely homophobic and there is substantial evidence supporting that she helped the Nazi's. Karl Lagerfeld has displayed disdain for overweight people, even though he himself was overweight for a good amount of time. Dolce and Gabanna believe that gay people should not be able to have traditional families even though they themselves are openly gay. It should also be noted that they were boycotted by many celebrities however, they are still extremely successful and more famous than before. These are just a few of the designers whose success has not been too severely impacted by their actions and statement. On the other hand, you have designers like John Galliano who made anti-semitic statements while drunk and was black-balled by the industry for a couple years and yet has subsequently returned since all the controversy had died down.
In this industry, the art is separated from the designer's or brand's personal beliefs most of the time. Marc Jacobs has always been messy and ridiculous in his personal life while designing; yet, he is still extremely successful. So what will happen in the future for this industry, only time can tell, but in the meantime if something is wrong don't be afraid to express your opinion. Maybe if enough people make a statement designers will learn from their mistakes and prejudice.
