In the recently published book I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records, by Audrey Golden, New Order's keyboardist Gillian Gilbert remembers how it was like working at the legendary Manchester-based label. "There was never anything about macho blokes (...) There were a lot of women in Factory that gave as good as they got," she states. "It was never us and them – it was all just one big family." Yet Gilbert also remembers that things weren't exactly like that in the rest of the UK. "In those days, in most other industries, it was still Benny Hill country, with mother-in-law jokes and men running around making fun of women," she highlights.
At Factory, Gilbert may not have experienced any sexism, yet at the time deeply ingrained patriarchal attitudes and gender biases still persisted, affecting various aspects of society. Sure, there were influential female figures in different industries, but sexist attitudes and objectification of women were still prevalent. Besides, media portrayals often reinforced gender stereotypes and emphasized women's appearances over their accomplishments.
Videos like Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" (1985) and "Simply Irresistible" (1988) were notable for their portrayal of women. In the former Palmer sang alongside an exclusively female band composed of glamorous white models pretending of playing musical instruments. In the latter models performed awkward dance routines, or simply stood behind Palmer.
In both the videos all the models dressed in identical body-con designs and wore identical makeup and heiarstyles. In a nutshell, they looked like soulless robots.
Besides, the camera often lingered on their physical features, focusing on their buttocks, breasts, and lips, reducing them to body parts. But, thank goodness, things have changed since then. Or have they?
Sometimes you doubt that things may have changed, especially in fashion representation. After all, even when fashion preaches about diversity, inclusion and empowerment, the visuals accompanying such concepts often leave much to be desired.
Take the latest hyped up collaboration - Mugler for H&M - packaged as the latest example of fashion democratization. It is worth reminding us all that this concept doesn't mean that ordinary people actually start getting a decent living wage and can afford to buy amazing designs (hence fashion becomes "democratised"), but implies that wealthy people can still afford what they want, while all the rest of us can buy more affordable copies, at times in dubious materials that should be kept very far away from live flames.
Released to great fanfare last Thursday in 120 stores globally and online as well, the collection featured men and womenswear designs, including corseted jackets and leather trenchcoats with ample shoulder pads, body-hugging dresses, nude-illusion jeans with spiral Lycra inserts and a couple of "archival" (a word that the industry often uses to commit the worst crimes against fashion) pieces designed by the late Thierry Mugler and reinvented by the current creative director of the brand, Casey Cadwallader. The collection also featured a variety of gender-fluid accessories, such as sheer gloves, tights, bags and scarves.
Most of the items sold out briskly which means that the combination of super famous and hip design brand and fast fashion retailer is still attractive for most of us. At the same time, some of the designs also flooded eBay, many listed for double or even triple the original price (which in turns means that quite a few of us were buying the pieces in the hope of reselling them and making a profit....).
The collection was hailed as a powerful embodiment of empowerment, embracing the essence of freedom, self-expression, and inclusivity well before its official launch.
To stay true to these promises the launch was accompanied by a star-studded energetic and exuberant video directed by Torso and styled by Haley Wollens with an inclusive cast of all genders and identities (including Mugler's muses Jerry Hall and Connie Fleming). A reimagined version of Stardust's 1998 hit "Music Sounds Better with You" by Amaarae, Shygirl, Eartheater and Arca provided the sountrack for the launch.
Once released, though, the collection may have been summarized as a sea of skin-tight Lycra bodysuits (cheaper versions of the figure-hugging designs featuring nude illusion panels and spiral cutouts worn by Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Kylie Jenner, Doja Cat, Cardi B. and others) and body-con dresses (albeit in a surprising variety of sizes).
Some praised the fact that the collection was a near-carbon copy of Mugler's mainline - which means that the fashion house, rather than progressing into the future, is regressing from empowered vixens, dangerous queen bees and mutant creatures, super heroines and alluring gynoids, to barely there Lycra catsuits, spiral denim pants and body-con dresses.
Apart from this emphasis on body-con designs (you wished they had come up with T-shirtw with some Mugler sketches or iconic images from his shows or even his own astonishing photographs of models with famous landmarks in the background), the photographs accompanying the collection also made you think.
While the video tried to be more inclusive, the images mainly featured skinny models: though more inclusive than Robert Palmer's all white cast of models, the photoshoot felt like engaging in tokenism rather than aiming for inclusivity, besides, the glamour skinny models in body-con dresses prevailed.
In a way, it was as if Thierry Mugler's potent fantasy world of empowered vixens had morphed into a smaller world populated by women in body-hugging mini-dresses serving someone else's narrative (a fast fashion retailer desperate to make a quick profit).
As consumers we should instead learn to write our own personal narratives and define our individual identities as authentic empowerment arises from embracing the extraordinary within ourselves. This realization should help us scrutinizing the deceptive nature of fashion democratization, and the manufactured narratives surrounding notions of heritage, archives, inclusivity, and diversity that are incessantly imposed upon us.
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