(Fashion Flashback – Originally posted on 7/7/09 – It was just last summer when this article was originally posted, but it is an all time favorite that we just can’t get enough of. It seems almost every week something happens that makes us want to re-post this. The sad truth is that if you work in fashion, particularly if you are female and in design, you are often dismissed as shallow and lacking any cerebral qualities. It is appalling stereotype thrust onto to many women in our field whose brains are often overlooked in favor of their creative talents. So please enjoy the below post and if you’ve already read it, pass it on to friend in the business!)
We’ve written before about the ridiculous notion that fashion design is an easy career path. There’s often this absurd image perpetuated in the media that working in fashion is a simple and mindless task. How many movies have you seen, be it a drama or romantic comedy, where the fashionable creative lead finds her true calling to be a designer three quarters of the way through the movie? After realizing her “passion for fashion”, a brief montage ensues of her touching fabrics, wrapping a tape measure around her neck, sketching in her spacious Soho loft, running into Bloomingdale’s with her samples, and then poof, she is magically a famous and successful designer. There, of course, is no mention of college or any educational training, no clips of raising capital or finding investors, no trips to sample rooms and negotiating price-points, no hunting for sales reps or walking trade shows, and God forbid no tech-packing! Be it television or movies, becoming a fashion designer is always portrayed as a fun and easy afterthought that can make an adorable girl immediately successful by a simple trip to the fabric store!
Celebrities too, do nothing but exacerbate this stereotype. These days it seems that every celebutaunte and their brother are launching a fashion line. To the media these celebrities endlessly promote their latest movie or album and then as an aside casually mention that they are launching a fashion label. In the same vain as: I’m getting a manicure, picking up the dry cleaning, taking my dog for a walk, and um, oh yeah, launching my own clothing line. The message is loud and clear, fashion design is such a stupidly easy achievement that anyone with half a brain could do it in their spare time. Those of us in the fashion industry realize of course that these celebrities are not designing their own lines but actually contractually licensing the rights to their name unto apparel manufactures, who in turn hire teams of designers to get the job done. The result of the celebutard fashion label is the publicly dumbing down of our profession.
Besides attacking fashion as a career, advertising and entertainment have additionally skewed the fashion lover as a brainless consumer who is easily manipulated. We recently came across this article regarding the insulting ad campaign for Coach’s new line Poppy. The line, like many going after younger women on a moderate budget, crosses the line from fun to flighty. Real women can love fashion yet still be intelligent, educated, well rounded human-beings. To love a pair of fabulous shoes or find joy in perfectly styling an outfit, does not equate to the lowering of an IQ. Contrary to pop culture images, from Alicia Silverstone in Clueless to the inane eye-rolling and heavy sighing of The Hills girls, fashionistas are not all one dimensional airheads! The fashion icon as bimbo, from Marilyn Monroe to Jessica Simpson, is an insult to all of us, whether or not you work in the fashion industry. We would love to see the media stop promoting this image, but we’d also like to see everyone stop buying into it. Let’s stop rewarding brands who embrace this image, but more so, lets stop ourselves from subconsciously acting on it. We are encouraging a whole generation of young women, whose vocabulary is reduced to “amazing”, “hot”, “super cute”,and who don’t think twice about resorting to Paris Hiltonesque baby talk, to emulate this stereotype. Fashion is many things, from a fun shopping diversion, to a multi-billion dollar manufacturing industry, but it does NOT require you to check your brain at the door to enjoy it!
No comments:
Post a Comment