Could 2018 be the year fashion becomes inclusive?
OPINION | The industry is waking up
Essay by Robin Givhan. Views expressed are the opinions of the author.
The fashion industry’s customer base is overwhelmingly female. But how does Seventh Avenue actually feel about women — black, white, Latina, plump, poor, petite? We may find out in 2018.
Fashion has been reveling in its newfound interest in feminism for more than a year. Maria Grazia Chiuri helped to kick things off in the fall of 2016 when she made her debut at Dior. Her appointment as creative director marked the first time a woman would lead the 71-year-old French house, and Chiuri set the tone with a collection that incorporated the poetic prose of feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The designer inscribed T-shirts with the title of Adichie’s famous Ted talk, “We Should All Be Feminists.” A year later, Chiuri found inspiration in the late Linda Nochlin’s 1971 feminist critique of art history: “Why Have There Been No Great Female Artists?”
Other members of the fashion community have added to the conversation. Missoni, the Italian knitwear firm, filled its runway with models wearing pink “pussy hats.” New York designer Mara Hoffman put the organizers of the Women’s March on her runway. The Council of Fashion Designers of America honored Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards and activist Gloria Steinem. And in September, fashion’s most influential luxury conglomerates wrote corporate guidelines aimed at institutionalizing a simple fact: Models are not simply clothes hangers; they’re human beings who should be treated with dignity.
Fashion is waking up to the realization that it should work on behalf of women, in service to them and alongside them — respectfully.
The next year promises to be a test of whether fashion can put the slogans on its runway into practice.
