Marc Jacobs chanelling Miuccia Prada for the cover of INDUSTRIE magazine (as Mrs Marc Jacobs), "transversal style magazine" Candy's depiction of Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington (@ Frockwriter) and boy-model Andrej Pejic, fashion's new "femiman", who represents "a new gender fluidity in fashion, in which traditional male and female attitudes are starting to matter less" (The Daily Beast) have all made online headlines.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Hall poses in a white suit for the February 2011 cover of UK Harper's BAZAAR, Ines Van Lamsweerde posed with a moustache and beard for the The Gentlewoman, and Christina Binkley writes for WSJ that to dress well "a woman should shop like a man" (and Annie Hall dressing makes a comeback). This follows the rise of Lady Gaga/Agyness Deyn/Alexa Chung androgyny.
Fashion, in constant search of the Next Big Thing ("big" being ironic) to capture and sell, is bored with last year's fuller, curvaceous figure already, and is now more interested in boys who look like girls. Five years after the emo scene gave popular rise to men's skinny jeans, it's raining girlie men... again. Will manbags make a comeback? Lady-stashes?
So what of representations of women in 2011 – where will fashion and the women's glossies take us? Will the boy aesthetic give rise to size zero momentum and underdeveloped and undernourished models all over again? I certainly hope not.
Stand your ground, glossy editors: feeding the fashion fantasy, aspiration and consumerism need not mean negating what is good for women (i.e. representations of strong, beautiful, powerful, stylish, feminine, smart, political, sophisticated, funny, creative, complex women).
Meanwhile, ladies and gents, guard yourself against fashion's fickle aesthetic obsessions.
You can use your clicks to protest Kanye West's latest (disgusting, misogynistic) video which depicts "eroticized violence against women" here. Plenty for Taylor Swift to write about there. And another reason to join the Turned-On Women's Movement!
Yours truly,
Girl With a Satchel
2 comments:
I hope this does not get too big. If men carry purses and woman grow mustaches, how can we tell eachother apart?
I really love Kanye's music. But him as a person?...eugh.
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