We Should All Be Feminists

With designers like Prabal Gurung and Maria Grazia Chiuri making a stand for the fairer sex, fashion is enjoying a feminist moment now.

- Karen Tee

FASHION WEEKS ARE never short of show stopping moments, but during the Autumn/Winter 17 presentations in New York City earlier this year, it was a comparatively prosaic look that made everybody sit up and take notice — slogan t-shirts.

For his show’s finale, Prabal Gurung sent models down the runway in plain black and white t-shirts. In a move that was high on substance (and Instagrammable moments too), each tee bore a slogan affirming feminism or empowerment, such as “The future is female” and “Nevertheless she persisted”, with the Nepal-born designer himself proudly wearing one that read, “This is what a feminist looks like”.

If there ever was a moment in time for the feminist movement to claim sartorial cred, this would be it.

Just a season earlier, for her debut Spring/ Summer 17 show for Dior, artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri had kick-started this newfound activism in the fashion industry when she sent out a model in a t-shirt with the slogan, “We should all be feminists”, which was paired with a tulle skirt.

The movement has now gone global and includes a diverse group of designers from Gurung in New York to Missoni in Milan, where Angela Missoni closed her show with models sporting pink knitted pussyhats — the symbol of women’s marches held around the world in January. Many other indie designers, including Mara Hoffman, Jonathan Simkhai and Rebecca Minkoff, made notable feminist statements during their shows too.

In Paris, designers took a more cerebral approach with thoughtful collections from Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garcons and Jun Takahashi for Undercover, among others, that critics interpreted as treatises on the female identity. No matter which you prefer, there is no denying that fashion has embraced feminism as its cause du jour.

Power to the Woman