Fashion is
an art. It is a creative way of using one’s own body as a canvas to send out
messages that speak of the million things that goes inside the vital mind.
Everything on the exterior is a reflection of the interior. Fashion shares the
fundamentals of religion. Anyone who understands this art of silent
conversation will agree that fashion, much like religion, is something very
personal. It is an individualistic element of personality. However, much like
religion, when fashion is spread through coercive or non-coercive influence, it
becomes meaningless. It may exist in our mind but we begin to lose its essence.
Contrary to the public belief, true fashion has become rare. The new concept of
“Universal trends” has taken its place.
Fashion was
an intelligent child of creativity. Trend (which today has become synonymous
with fashion) is the mindless foster child of the capitalistic fashion
industry. Fashion is not an art anymore. It is a business and all the
self-proclaimed fashion addicts or media pronounced fashion forwards are
nothing but merely, the victims of a capitalistic fashion industry. Abe Ajay,
the famous American artist, once said,” The art world is now a fashion
industry, led by its Whitney Biennial ‘nose for the new look`. But nobody, it
seems has the guts or the brains to blow the necessary whistler and holler,
‘Hold on guys! What the hell is this ugly bit of business?” To be able to
understand the true meaning of fashion, it is important to reveal the farce
face of current trend-fashion-industry.
Twenty First Century Fashion- a result of capitalism & Elitism
In fashion
magazines, pages dealing with intellectual opinions are inserted in between
thick piles of advertisements from big fashion houses. The 2011 September issue
of the Fashion behemoth, Vogue, carried 532 pages of advertisement of the total
758 pages. Similarly, the second leading fashion magazine, InStyle, had 347
pages filled with ads from big fashion houses and lifestyle brands. It has been
alleged that Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of the world’s most celebrated
fashion magazine, the American Vogue, buys upcoming designers by obligating
them through undue favors. Anna Wintour is also infamous for promoting the use
of fur by denying paid advertisements of animal protection organizations in her
magazine and simultaneously, compelling her designers to promote fur in lieu of
promotion in the same coveted magazine. Lifestyle channel celebrates the life
of the elites. Television shows are dedicated to celebrity life and their
designer wardrobes. Names like Armani, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc
Jacobs, Tom Ford, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen etc.
have been imprinted on the minds of the middle class. NDTV Good Times’ famous show “I’m Too Sexy –
All Access” is clearly biased towards big fashion houses and popular designer
names. In recent episodes on bags and shoes, the top ten picks comprised of
ridiculously expensive designer creations. Nothing from the streets made it to
the list. Unfortunately, these days, fashion journalism does not give much
importance to designers who actually design clothes for the middle strata and
no space is dedicated to promoting personal style. The opinion of the pundits is
unanimous and one- the style of the elites is celebrated and it is the only
thing in the world that should be imitated.
Is it worth the price?
Art is priceless. Isn’t it? The fashion industry lives by the same diktat. This is the only way of explaining the sky high prices that the designers demand for their designs. The haute couture is customized and one of its kind. A fair enough explanation for why it needs to be so expensive. However, not all pieces that designers create are exclusive. Invariably every designer product is priced at an unaffordable amount. Most of these designer items are created in third world countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Cambodia etc. where the labor is available for cheap and is compelled to work for long strenuous hours to get some much needed money (a fact which is constantly undermined and concealed). Gucci’s parent company PPR was accused of using third world cheap labor in 2002. In 2007, A BBC program showed Indian children working extra hours in sweatshops to produce products for the American clothing and accessories retailer GAP. Incidents like these have become recurrent now. The employment of third world labor in the process of production may have reduced the real cost of production but the price demanded for designer goods have only increased over the years. A look at the prices of some of the iconic dresses and accessories will explain things further:
- The iconic Hermes’s Birkin bag can cost a fashionista anything between £6,000 and £1, 00,000. These bags are made out of calf, crocodile, ostrich or lizard leather. (Should one really kill an ostrich for a bag?) The raw material used may be expensive but does not certainly amount to the value of the bag. The company justifies the cost of the bag on the grounds that these are crafted by experts and are handmade. (An expert craftsman sitting in some puny streets of Delhi can design a more or less similar bag for you at a much lesser price. Well, that’s handmade too but not worthy of the price. Why? Because it is not HERMES and no Vogue or Elle is promoting it).
- American Designer Herve L. Leroux of Herve Leger created the amazing Bandage or the body-con dress with the materials that are traditionally used for making foundation garments. Herve sells these dresses for a range between $750 and $3800 (considering the fabric used, the cost charged is at least ten times or more of the real cost of production).
- Fashion may be considered to be an obsession for women but there is no dearth of men who are willing to shed bank accounts to get a custom made suit. A tailor made Tom Ford or Valentino suit can cost a person around $2500. Similarly, the best of Yves Saint Laurent or Dolce and Gabbana custom –made suits are priced around $2100. (The tailor at Raymonds creates impeccable custom made suits for $96. Not many fashion lovers come to him. Why? Because Brad Pitt & Shahrukh Khan, do not endorse his tailored suits on the red carpets).
- The fashion industry does not only make one pay through bucks. It also makes people pay physically. How? Take for instance, the current obsession with size zero. The supermodel Kate Moss who popularized the “zero-size” or “heroin-chin” look in the 1990s was naturally waif. She did not have to give up eating to attain the size zero status. However, when fashion pundits and celebrities established size zero as a norm, women across the world were compelled to give up eating and attain an anorexic figure. Plus size women were written off as obese and ugly. In the fight to become fashionably accepted, women begun to become non-existent.
Can you call yourself fashionable?
Recently, Burberry and Louis Vuitton
have won cases against counterfeiting. It means that the fake designer items
that were sold in markets for cheap will now be unavailable. Anyone found
selling or possessing them, is liable to fine. This is an iconic judgment for
the capitalistic fashion industry because it means that the consumers, who
earlier satisfied themselves with a cheaper imitation, will now be compelled to
spend exorbitant amount of money in buying their favorite designer item. Those
who cannot afford it will continue to dream of it (and anything which people
cannot afford becomes all the more desirable to them).
The global fashion industry is an
approximately thousand billion dollar industry today. People have become more
conscious of brands and labels. Clothing and styling has been taken to a whole
new level. Fashion magazines and lifestyle channels make millions each year. However,
can we truly call ourselves fashionable? What does a woman wearing an Armani or
a Valentino say of herself? To the fashion world, she may say that she is
fashionable. But to me, her endorsement of designers seems to say that she
lacks any knowledge of self and uses a designer as a crutch to boost up her low
confidence. We wear clothes that are deemed to be suitable for us by a bunch of
people who have invested more time in creating an industry ripe with profits
than art. Through our choice of fashion, we shun who we really are to embrace
who we want to be. The fashion industry may claim otherwise but the fact is
that people are not fashionable anymore. They are simply disillusioned by a
trap which is beautiful, glorious and becoming all the more unattainable at
every step. Alas! Oscar Wilde saw it all coming years ago when he said, “Fashions
are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by
tradesmen.”
