Module 1 part a
Wearing your politics on your sleeve
According to Orsola de Castro, co-founder of the Fashion Revolution movement, who we are and what we wear are closely connected because:
“Clothes are our chosen skin. We communicate who we are, to a certain extent, through clothing. It is fundamentally a part of what we wish to communicate about ourselves to the world.”
THE TRUE COST
So let’s start this module by looking again at Manifesto point #10. It pictures a time in the future when every fashion statement that we make will be positive.
QUESTION: How close do you think we are to this now? What do you think? Write down your thoughts.
Without doubt fashion can be – and it really is – political. Throughout history there are many examples of fashion statements, colour schemes, designers, brands, movements etc showing their politics through their fashion.
Deciding to buy, wear, design, model or make such ‘statement pieces’ themselves, people deliberately position themselves in relation to the troubles of the world. This, in turn, can have powerful effects on the ways in which wider publics hear about and engage with those troubles themselves.
What Orsola is talking about above are the kinds of clothes that make subtle, hidden statements about us, including stories about them that only we might know. But we want to start this module by looking at some famous examples of ‘statement clothing’ that have been worn to shout their wearers’ politics to anyone who sees them. It’s fascinating to see what they express, protest, commiserate, share, degrade, marginalise, celebrate… and to read the stories behind them.
We start with a drab olive coat, and end with a collection.
i. The coat: ‘I really don’t care, do u?’
One of the most notorious ‘fashion statements’ in recent times was on the back of a drab olive-green Zara anorak worn by First Lady of the USA Melania Trump on her 2018 visit to migrant children in a Texas detention centre. Painted in white, it said: I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?
TASK 1: Take a look at the photograph in the article about Melania Trump above and read about what the author Dana Thomas had to say about it in her book Fashionopolis: the price of fast fashion and the future of clothes.
QUESTIONS: What statement do you think this jacket is making about its wearer? What statement does Dana Thomas think it is making about the fashion industry? Is this the kind of ‘fashion statement’ that Orsola de Castro is talking about? How closely does it alight to the fashion future outlined in Manifesto Point #10? Write down your thoughts.
One of the most notorious ‘fashion statements’ in recent times was on the back of a drab olive-green Zara anorak worn by First Lady of the USA Melania Trump on her 2018 visit to migrant children in a Texas detention centre. Painted in white, it said: I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U? Your first task in this module is to look at a photograph of this fashion statement and read about what author Dana Thomas had to say about it in her book Fashionopolis: The price of fast fashion and the future of clothes.
Pundits opined that the jacket broadcasted how Mrs. Trump truly felt about the locked-up kids. Or her public duties. Or her marriage. Her husband tweeted that it was her view of “the Fake News Media”. Her spokeswoman claimed: “There was no hidden message.” She was right, in a sense. The message was loud and clear. And it’s a devastating reflection of how we live now.
The jacket was, in effect, the most existential garment ever designed, made, sold and worn. Zara is the world’s largest fashion brand. In 2018, it produced more than 450 million items. Its parents company, Spain-based Inditex, reported £25.34 billion, or 28.63 billion, in sales for 2017, of which Zara made up two-thirds, or approximately $18.8 billion. The jacket, which came from the company’s Spring-Summer 2016 collection, retailed for $39. To be able to sell clothing that cheaply and still reap a sizeable profit, production is outsourced to independently owned factories in developing nations, where there is little or no safety and labour oversight and wages are generally poverty level, or lower.
At the time workers were cutting and sewing Mrs. Trump’s jacket, Amancio Ortega, the octogenarian cofounder and former chairman of Inditex, was the second-richest person in the world (after Bill Gates), with a net worth of $67 billion.The jacket itself was made of cotton. Conventionally grown cotton is one of agriculture’s most polluting crops. Almost one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of hazardous pesticides is required to grow one hectare—or two and a half acres—of the fluff. It was dyed and lettered with colouring agents that, while composting in landfill, would poison the earth and groundwater. On average—average—the piece would be worn seven times before getting tossed. Though given the criticism hurled at Mrs. Trump for donning it on that visit, she would likely never put it on again. So, like most clothing today, to the dump the jacket would go.“I really don’t care, do you?” (Thomas 2019, p.1-2).
FOLLOW UP READING: Dana Thomas’ book looks critically at the fashion industry in all of its complexity and explores the possibilities for its positive future ‘by reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion.’
ii. The protest clothing: t-shirts, hats and dresses.
Melania Trump’s jacket is an unusual example to start with. Some of the best known ‘statement piece’ clothes include the plain slogan t-shirts saying ‘I CAN’T BREATHE’ worn by US basketball players in response to the murders by police officers of African American men including, most recently, George Floyd in 2020, and the knitted ‘pussy hats’ worn by over half a million people attending the Women’s March in Washington DC in 2017.
Celebrities and politicians often wear eye-catching ‘statement pieces’ to high profile events. Some of the best know examples include the ‘Tax the rich’ dress that US Democratic Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore to the Met Gala in New York in 2021 and the ‘meat dress’ worn Lady Gaga at the VMA awards ceremony in x in 2010 to persuade the US military not to discriminate against gay and lesbian recruits (this statement is explained in the article link).
Brands and designers also design and showcase statement collections, like those described in the Fall of 2017 by fashion journalist Jessica Iredale which included:
“blatant messaging printed across garments in collections including Christian Siriano, Prabal Gurung, Public School and Versace [and] Angela Missoni turn[ing] her show into her own mini Women’s March, giving each guest, model and backstage hand a pink “pussy” hat made in the Missoni mills. Other designers handled topical issues with more subtlety, … [including] Jun Takahashi [who] staged a theatrical alternate reality of otherworldly creatures of equal rank and file, and Stella McCartney, who made her point with tailoring spliced with pointy cone bras and a choreographed dance with models singing their anthem: “Don’t you f—k with my energy.”
TASK: Click the links in the text above to find out more about the examples that are mentioned. Find out why, by whom and where these statement pieces were made and worn.
QUESTION: To what extent do these examples make statements about ‘who made my clothes’? Why do you think this might be the case? What inspiration could you take to design clothes which do make statements about this topic? [We will think more about this in the next part of this module]
iii. The statement collection: solidarity with Ukraine.
Our final example of a ‘fashion statement’ came in the Spring of 2022 when both the Russian invasion of Ukraine began and the Fashion Weeks in European cities like Berlin, Milan and Paris took place. While many designers and fashion houses carried on as if nothing was happening, others quickly brought the war into their collections and catwalks.
Articles and podcasts then appeared about these shows and the ways in which they brought fashion and war together in the same space, for example:
“The morning that Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war was also the first day of Milan Fashion Week. And as the violence continued, so too did the fashion shows, next in Paris. Fashion’s Instagram feeds were unsettling mix of commentary on Kim Kardashian’s outfits and blue-and-yellow street style looks inspired by the Ukrainian flag. Some brands used their platforms to take a stand for peace. But solidarity only goes so far. How should fashion respond to war?” Wardrobe Crisis
“As models trudged through a harsh, man-made snowstorm at Balenciaga’s Paris Fashion Week presentation on March 6, the show’s message became glaringly obvious: if art imitates life, the world is in a dire state. … Designer Demna … had originally planned the simulated blizzard as a statement on climate change and the imminent disappearance of snow due to global warming. But against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, the presentation’s setting took on new meaning” Fashion Magazine
“Kyiv-based designer Jean Gritsfeldt was preparing his autumn/winter 2022 collection for Berlin Fashion Week when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Here, he explains why he went ahead with his show just three weeks later, with a completely different collection” Vogue
TASK: To learn more about this coming together of politics and fashion, the ways in which these clothes were made to communicate their designers’ feelings about what’s happening in the world, please listen to Clare Press’s 50 minute conversation with Vogue Ukraine’s Venya Brykalin about these shows and collections in an episode of the Wardrobe Crisis podcast.
QUESTION: As you listen, please note down the ways in which fashion designers try to communicate messages through their clothes. What tactics do they employ? They include written slogans, as we have seen above, but what else do they play with? And what else is interesting about how this war challenged the world of high fashion? Which brands and designers made a stand? What was the response to their collections?
The most recent example of this ‘statement fashion’ design came in spring 2022 during the Fashion Weeks in Berlin, Milan and Paris and other cities where fashion houses quickly responded to the war in Ukraine.
What you learn here may inform and inspire your own upcycling designs, and the statements they make, later in the course.
iv. Reflection
This first part of Module 1 has encouraged you to think about the ways in which our clothes can make statements about us, both because of what we buy and choose to wear, but also because of the statements that are deliberately (and perhaps unthinkingly) designed into them.
This first part of Module 1 has encouraged you to think about the ways in which our clothes can make statements about us, both because of what we buy and choose to wear, but also because of the statements that are deliberately (and perhaps unthinkingly) designed into them.
There is one more task to do before we move on. We’d like you to reflect on everything you have read and listened to above, and all of the notes you have made, to do the following:
TASK: Imagine that you are designing a ‘statement piece’ or a ‘statement collection’ in which you want to say or show something about the people who make your everyday clothes.
QUESTIONS: What design tips would you take from the examples above? We’re not asking you to think of the message yet – we haven’t studied that yet – but which design tactics were the most interesting and inspiring for you? How can political statements be best communicated through our clothes? And who can they best be communicated to?
Write down your ideas. These will be important for later in the course.
