From Cosmopolitan · Aiyana Ishmael · · 2m
Fashion's reckoning with its own contradictions
The fashion industry faces an impossible choice between artistic integrity and financial survival in an age of social media accountability.
In brief
The fashion industry faces an impossible choice between artistic integrity and financial survival in an age of social media accountability. Fashion can no longer hide its moral compromises in the shadows. The internet has exposed the industry's contradictions between beautiful clothes and exploitative labor practices…
Fashion's protest moment
Steven Kolb, CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, went viral after physically restraining two PETA protesters at a runway show, sparking outrage about why someone in his position felt the need to silence them.
The CFDA responds with a review
The CFDA placed Kolb on leave and announced a full review of the incident, stating the organization is committed to working with dissenting voices and upholding values of respectful engagement.
“The CFDA as an organization is committed to working with dissenting voices to find commonality”
Fashion's double standard exposed
The incident highlights a larger pattern in fashion where the industry accepts contradictions between celebrating beautiful clothes and ignoring exploitative labor practices and animal cruelty happening behind the scenes.
The selling out dilemma
Artists in fashion face an impossible choice: maintain moral principles and fade into obscurity due to financial struggles, or compromise those values to expand their brand and career.
Stylist calls out the system
Fashion writer Gabriella Karefa-Johnson criticized how the industry protects money and power, saying people volunteer as enforcers for capitalism by looking the other way at moral compromises.
“We gotta stop volunteering ourselves as enforcers for capitalism.”
Art has always needed patrons
Fashion's reliance on wealthy backers is not new. But the internet now makes it impossible to hide what artists have compromised or who funds their work, changing the stakes of selling out.
The uncomfortable contradictions
Loving fashion now means constantly accepting contradictions: supporting plus-size creators doing real representation work while they wear fast fashion, or celebrating the Met Gala's charity mission while it's funded by polarizing billionaires.
Fashion's murkiness is now visible
The internet and social media have pulled fashion's contradictory practices from the shadows into the light, forcing the industry to confront what it has always hidden.
“Fashion can no longer exist in this murkiness.”
The essence
Fashion can no longer hide its moral compromises in the shadows. The internet has exposed the industry's contradictions between beautiful clothes and exploitative labor practices, forcing insiders to reckon with what they've always accepted.
