Fashion Was Never Shallow, You Were
Fashion was one of my first loves. I loved fashion so much growing up that I even wanted to be a fashion designer for a short period of time. Once I realized my sketches looked like a kindergartener’s coloring book, I then decided to just stick to admiring, researching and writing about fashion. Which was a good thing because it led me to have a newfound respect and love for fashion.
When I say that, I can already predict some eyes will roll. Which I can somewhat understand. The average American doesn’t spend their Sunday’s crying over an Alexander McQueen documentary, unfortunately. Fashion is often limited to just fabrics you wear; no more, no less. There is even a negative sigma around liking fashion. Despite it being 2020, some people still view someone having an interest in fashion as shallow or frivolous.
Which can be shown in a lot of movies from the 1940s to even now. Movies or TV show characters like High School Musical’s Sharpay Evans or The Devil Wears Prada’s Miranda Priestly or Friends’ Rachel Green. They are perfect examples of the three different tropes of fashionable characters in movies. All characters had an interest in fashion and dressing up. They were all viewed as dumb, calculated, or mean by other characters who weren’t as interested in fashion. Every time a tv show or movie writer wants to write a mean or dumb character, they immediately make them interested in fashion or beauty as if those hobbies equate to someone’s lower intelligence or a shallow personality.
In my experience, this character trope seemed to have created internalized misogyny in some women or blatant sexism in some men. People - mainly women - who dress up tend to be seen as “try-hards”, full of themselves, or even stupid. Usually, a woman who wants to be taken seriously has to dress down more to make others more comfortable. It’s almost as if we all forgotten: you can dress well and still be smart. A good sense of style doesn’t cancel out your intelligence. Did we forget about Elle Woods or something? But this unfortunate stereotype led to a “comfort vs style” debate among women, as if you can only have one.
Either way, some couture collections will be dismissed as “ugly” or “unflattering” because someone doesn’t associate these looks as something they would wear on an everyday basis. What people chose to ignore is that a lot of fashion (especially couture) is made with the same intention that other forms of art are made: to tell a story or showcase an emotion. Fashion is just another form of art; like how writing and music are.
Fashion is also inherently political. Its cultural and historical impact is hard to ignore, but its political impact is almost always left unacknowledged. There are multiple examples of this but my personal favorite was the anti-fashion movement in the 1990s.
The 1980s were all about unrealistic glamour, excess, and loud designs. It tended to be unrealistic for the average customer. Then the anti-fashion movement went against everything the 80s represented. The anti-fashion movement was all about minimalism, controversy, and showcasing the more dark sides of the world and fashion. Maison Margiela is a huge example of this. He was one of the leaders of this movement. He would cover the faces of his models, have his runway shows in unconventional locations, and have multiple collections criticizing the consumerism and false glamour of the industry. This was extremely groundbreaking at that time because it was so different from anything the fashion industry had seen before.
This same attitude can also be seen in the Spring Summer 1998 collection Hussein Chalayan did. He turned his collection into a discussion for the freedom of Muslim women. The finale looks started with a model wearing a knee-length niqab, then it slowly transitioned to another model naked with a facepiece only. It was and still is controversial but it’s a huge example of the strong connection runway fashion has to politics.
Although, fashion can be fun and meaningless, to ignore its century-long political and historical impact on society is simply ignorant. There are so many layers to it. Not to mention all the revolutionary and creative designers like Iris Van Herpen, Elsa Schiaparelli, Alexander McQueen, etc. Fashion is complex but intriguing and is so worth researching and learning about.
Fashion was never shallow, everyone else was.