Further Reading: Can Fashion and Activism Co-Exist?
August 6, 2010
via http://www.buylesscrap.org
Here’s something I think about often: the relationship between fashion and activism, or fashion and social/political/economic consciousness. I’d say more, but the idea is that you read the links, not what I have to say. :)
Following are some articles that might offer some new perspectives (or remind you of old ones) on this topic. Happy reading!
*Africa needs schools, clinics, and sweatshops…?
*should feminism give fashion a break?
*some thoughts on Product (RED)
*where not to shop from Katie at Interrobangs Anonymous
*me on the dirty side of American Apparel
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Great links, the one on Product (Red) is especially compelling.
The more I keep thinking about American Apparel, the more I feel Dov Charney is the sartorial equivalent of Terry Richardson. Both set up scenarios where women are sexualized, objectified and demeaned, but within a context that’s made to make you feel like the prude/spinster/uptight individual if you find them questionable. I want to be very careful with the analogy, but it reminds me of the scenarios you learn about when studying abuse. The abuser attempts to control the situation by emulating what they want the abusee to do. Terry Richardson will invite a model to photograph him naked so he can turn around and photograph them naked, Dov Charney will pose in an ad in his underwear to make it alright to have so many other ads of women in their underwear, or invite his coworkers to be blatantly open about sex so that he can do the same. The argument is always that everyone is an adult and it’s not a big deal, but it is. And when you set up a system that shames those who would question it, you encourage a system in which no one questions what you do. It’s one thing to argue for a system like that which exists within a vacuum, but every time I see an American Apparel ad I wonder how many young girls and boys saw the same ad, and how those images and the huge amount of social commentary behind them are searing themselves into their minds.