Fashion and Its Statements

by Cherie Harder

Why care about fashion?

A generation’s worth of conversation about cultural engagement and renewal has prompted many to rethink ways and means of promoting justice, consuming goods, stewarding resources, responding to marketing, seeing the visual arts, and experiencing the performing arts. But in the midst of such fascinating cultural ferment, little has been said or written about fashion, its influence, and its statements.

As noted in the previous article, such oversight is, I believe, a mistake. The fashion industry is a potent cultural force because fashion trends shape and define what society in general, and youth culture in particular, regards as attractive, socially acceptable (or aspirational), and worth of emulation. And what we as a society value, buy, and emulate sheds light on our character.

But if the fashion industry is a potent cultural force, and fashion trends speak to our national character, how should those seeking to more thoughtfully engage our culture respond?

An effective engagement of the fashion industry could take various forms, but it would include several elements:

First, it would acknowledge the philosophical import of fashion trends and consider carefully the message being advertised., When the fashion industry and institutions wield their considerable influence to glamorize and peddle nihilism, degradation and addiction, they can help mold (and distort) the imagination, attitudes, and assumptions—which, in turn, shape the way we act, relate and behave.

One of the most hopeful developments that could occur would be the various fashion designers voluntarily and conscientiously considering the message and potential impact of their advertising campaigns and runway dramas on the larger society. An effective social movement would encourage fashion insiders to do so, and affirm their actions when they did.

Second, an effective engagement of the fashion industry would celebrate life and health over death and degradation. Cultural reformers need to recognize the import and criticize the appearance of death-glorifying and violence-glamorizing ad campaigns. It need not presume to dictate fashion—indeed, it should not. But there is something deeply perverse and potentially tragic when gangster garb and lifestyles are glamorized, when suicide is depicted as chic, and when physical abuse is presented as alluring.

Perhaps the most extreme example was the (happily short-lived) “junkie chic” aesthetic of the mid-1990s. The slumped posture, stoned expression, despairing eyes and, and wasted frame of the ?look” was described by some critics as “the glorification of having no standards.” But any pretense aside, the fashion industry holds to narrow and rigorous standards. Even when models emulate cadavers, the corpse is invariably thin and beautiful, with perfect skin and eye-pleasing features. Fashion photographers may glamorize addiction over health, death over life, angst over contentment, promiscuity over fidelity, sexual precociousness over innocence, but it never glamorizes cellulite, large noses, or close-set eyes.

The central idea of “junkie chic” was not that the homely can achieve hipness, but that there is glamour in the reckless neglect or destruction of youthful health and beauty through drugs – a nihilistic twist on the idea of living fast, dying young, and having a good-looking corpse.

Of course, there is also a deep misogyny inherent in such an aesthetic. (Who can imagine a men’s magazine glamorizing the appearance of frightened, strung-out, and half-starved guys?) At a minimum, cultural reformers should be interested in affirming an aesthetic that allows for human dignity by flattering, rather than degrading, the subject.

There has certainly been progress in this area from the era of junkie chic, and there is evidence of both reflection and reform from within the industry, particularly from the Council of Fashion Designers of America and its current president Diane von Furstenberg. In 2007, the CFDA created a new initiative to pursue Health as Beauty. For example, early during the fall of 2011, the CFDA announced that it partner with designers who ban underage models from the catwalk. Such efforts at self-regulation are to be commended, and encouraged to grow.

A third component in engagement of the fashion industry would be to seek the end of the premature sexualizing of children’s fashion. It is now so common to see pre-teen girls in skinny jeans, heels, and t-shirts emblazoned with charged messages (“hottie,” “legal-ish,” etc.), that it fails to shock. And while every so often, a particularly offensive ad campaign shocks a few cultural commentators into reproach – such as Calvin Klein’s “kiddie porn” ads of the mid-1990’s, featuring blank-faced, spread-eagle, underage models clad only in their skivvies, or more recently, 10-year old Thylane Blondeau’s provocative appearance atop leopard print cushions in French Vogue – the sexualized depiction of children is more likely to elicit a yawn.

But the precocious sexuality encouraged and glamorized by much of the fashion industry is both exploitive and ugly. A culture is defined largely by its boundaries; exploiting children in fashion spreads should be off limits and out-of-bounds. The increasing purchasing power of teens and preteens ensures that they will continue to be the target of edgy and sexually-charged fashion advertising. A successful fashion critique would clearly and decisively oppose the exploitation of children and the commercializing of children’s sexuality—whether it is a slickly packaged pedophilia appeal aimed at adults (a la Calvin Klein and French Vogue) or the precocious sexualizing of pre-teenyboppers (such as cosmetics designed for eight-year-old girls).

Fashion statements are worth taking seriously because they have a serious impact on our values, as well as on our aesthetic preferences. What we see as fashionable is closely linked to what we believe acceptable and admirable; fashion adjusts norms as much as hemlines. Certainly there are many creations of the fashion industry worthy of admiration and consumption—for their beauty, ingenuity, and craftsmanship. And conversely, when fashion’s statements glamorize death or pedophilia, they require a response. It’s time to speak up.

Fashion is an area of culture that affects us all whether we want it to or not. How can your community be provoked to engage fashion instead of being offended by it?
What does it look like for the clothes we wear to reflect our core beliefs as followers of Jesus?

Editor's Note: A version of this article was published in Building a Healthy Culture and was posted here with permission after the author updated it. The image was created by Anna Higgie.

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