the f word(s) - fashion vs feminism

some sections from Valerie Steele’s 'The F-Word', originally published in Lingua Franca (1991):
the F-word still has the power to reduce many academics to embarrassed or indignant silence. some of those to whom i spoke while preparing this article requested anonymity or even refused to address the subject; those who did talk explained that many of their colleagues found it 'shameful to think about fashion.' one professor explained the 'denial' of fashion this way: 'people say that they don't care about fashion, but that may be because they aren't self-conscious enough to envision a personal style. style is what most academics don't have.'

academics may be the worst-dressed middle-class occupational group in the United States. but they do wear clothes. so i set out to discover what professors choose to wear (the clothes don't grow in their closets), what they think about fashion (even when they claim not to think about it), and, well, why they tend to dress so badly.

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM:
certain widely held (but little examined) philosophical and epistemological assumptions militate against on-campus sartorial nonconformity. in academic circles, many professors say, clothing is perceived as 'material' (not intellectual) and, therefore, 'beneath contempt.' there is a sharp division between 'the life of the mind and that of the body'--and as a result (one professorial source quips) academics tend to have 'bad bodies, and no one dresses well.'
according to John Brewer, a professor of history at UCLA, 'to dress fashionably is to be labeled frivolous, to seem to care about the body and, therefore, by implication to downplay the life of the mind. most colleagues view sartorial interest and especially sartorial 'play' or facetiousness with a mixture of amusement, condescension, and fear. dowdy is safe and serious; bad dressing, one of the last ways in which academics can project the illusion of other- worldliness.'

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some sections from Elaine Showalter’s 'Better Things to Do', in Media History 6.2 (2000):
as an academic who occasionally publishes in women's magazines, i've learned first-hand that they are both widely read and openly disparaged by my feminist peers. i suspect that my contribution to Vogue fell into the category of the 'humour column' described by Lisa Nevarez in this issue of Media History. certainly it was self-deprecating, but even so, some of my smart women readers in this academic world were not taken in by its humour, page placements, or cosmopolitan sophistication. they were adamant about their belief that i should have 'better things to do' than to write for these magazines, and their insistence that they had better things to do than read them, and would not have even read my article except in the line of feminisit theoretical duty. why are 'intelligent, successful' womeon so guilt-stricken for self-righteousness about reading women's magazines? why do those who work for them write for them, subscribe to them, and study them continue to feel apologetic and defensive? there are three reasons, i believe, why women's magazines, a force in shaping women's political and social culture for centuries, should elicit such mixed, and moralistic reactions.

first of all, the prose in women's magazines is brief, or at aleast brevity is favoured instead of expanse. as feminist critics since Virginia Woolf have pointed out, there is an unconscious psychological association in people's minds between the length of a work and its intellectual stamina.
second, magazines carry advertising, and for many feminists, they are much more guilty than, say, academic journals, of associating their readers and writers with the corrupt worlds of business and commerce. when i wrote for Vogue about enjoying paper dolls as a little girl, i was accused of supporting sweatshop labour. in other words, any woman involved with women's magazines is suspected of being either a victim or an oppressor of the commerical systems that allegedly compel us to consume.
third and most important, the concept of women's play is still underdeveloped. that reading magazines, trying on make-up, or doing needlework could be relaxing, pleasureable, or amusing for busy, bright, successful women seems to go against an unstated belief that women should always be working - caring for others, improving themselves, and casting a rosy glow of morality on all about them.
i myself believe that when i am reading Vogue i should not have to be worrying about whether i have 'better' things to do, and that pleasure and play are as necessary for women as for men and children.

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some sections from Emily Raine’s 'The F Word', in Worn: Fashion Journal issue 5 (Fall/Winter 2007):
fashion has always been treacherous terrain for feminists. they must caerfully negotiate critiques of the toll fashion sometimes takes on women's bodies, wallets, adn self-esteem, while recognising its capacity for pleasure, power, and entrepeneurship. while they have proven quite skilled at attacking fashion's many shortcomings, i have consistently been saddened and disenchanted by their failure to notice its many benefits.
feminism has a long history of disdain for clothing that is expressive, decorative or extravagant - in short, everything about fashion that is fun.
the fashion-conscious feminist is made to feel double shamed for having twice betrayed the feminist cause: first for falling into the old patriarchal trap of mugging for the objectifying sexual gase, then again for enjoying it.

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some sections from Susie Lau's 'Haters Gonna Hate' post, on Style Bubble (22 January 2010):
so i pick up my daily Guardian for the bus journey, rip into the G2 supplement first (doesn't everyone?) and was confronted with this article that i could feel would make me irrate before i even started scan-reading the text. 'Why I Hate Fashion' by Tanya Gold, whose writing i actually normally get a few chuckles out of. there are all the hazardous assumptions that a lot of mainstream media perpetuate about fashion as this 'evil' entity that i didn't think someone like Gold would well..continue to perpetuate.

as far as i can surmise..Gold has distilled her hatred of fashion because of the following..
..Carrie Bradshaw's love of shoes..
..a girl falling over in her heels in between two trains and dying..
..a model having a horrendous time in the industry..
..her hollow feelings of buying something expensive and designer..
Are we not missing a few things here? Gold's hatred of fashion is based on high heels, mal-treated models and gross consumption, when fashion and style (i'm lumping the two together because i'm thinking Gold hasn't made a distinction between the two..) is SO much more than that..

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some sections from Tavi Gevinson's 'Why I Don't Hate Fashion' post, on the Style Rookie (22 January 2010):
this morning Tanya Gold published an article in The Guardian entitled 'Why I Hate Fashion.' i can't say i fully disagree with everything she said. i hate the size issue, i hate the commercialism, i hate 14-year-old models being told to lose weight so they can look sexy in a dress made for women twice their age. the problem, though, is how she is so general-ALL of it is uncreative and evil, apparently. but it's a broad subject. criticising parts of it (poorly, might i add) is understandable, but putting Yohji Yamamoto in the same category as a magazine about cellulite, dating tips, and makeup is not. oh, and speaking of Yohji Yamamoto? he hates fashion, too. oh, and speaking of makeup? neither editors Katie Grand, editor of Love, or Anna Dello Russo, editor of Vogue Nippon, (you know, Vogue, the magazine Ms. Gold said she spits at and sometimes rips up) wear any.

you know, in the beginning of The September Issue, Anna Wintour says she thinks some people mock fashion because they are intimidated by it. and she's right. yeah, it's snobby, but you know what? so is turning up your nose at a runway collection because you thinks it's weird and you just don't get it. this, in fact, makes the nose-turner-upper not too different from those horrible 'fashion' magazines - dismissing something because it's strange. how very narrow-minded.

Ms. Gold speaks about how she discovered fashion at 13 and then dressed in a way she knew she was supposed to dress. 'how i enchanted. how i belonged. i thought i looked just like the effortlessly beautiful girls at school. except i didn't. and, very soon, i realised that i didn't. all that weekend job money and childish angst and still i looked like me. that was the first seduction – and the first betrayal.' i don't believe Ms. Gold 'discovered' fashion; she discovered middle school and teenagerdom. she said that before that, she dressed as Andy Pandy and was happier. i find the idea of dressing as Andy Pandy pretty awesome. it's creative and it's fun, and that sounds fashionable to me. what Tanya Gold and many others, including myself, hate is the everyone-has-to-look-the-same-and-also-sexy philosophy, which is NOT fashion.

i think that the problem with fashion isn't fashion, but how others decide to see it. the same 'fashion' magazines that offer advice about pleasing men might decide that fashion isn't for overweight people, but it's Tanya Gold's fault for believing it, and if she really wanted to have fun with clothes she could. same goes for the idea that clothes HAVE to make you look sexy. not if you don't want to! isn't that amazing!

i invite these folks to read a constructive runway review by Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan, Suzy Menkes, Hilary Alexander, or Lynn Yaeger. look at the works of Comme des Garcons, Rodarte, Issey Miyake, Alexander McQueen, or Vivienne Westwood, at the very least. read a magazine that has not one word about plastic surgery or dieting, or at least, ignore those parts and appreciate the art (Lula, i-D, Russh, Dazed and Confused, Pop, Love, Vogue, Bazaar, W, to name a few). be open-minded.

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some sections from Lisa Armstrong’s Times (UK) article, 'Fashion is Still a Feminist Issue' (3 March 2010):
so it looks as though, in 2010, even lipgloss is political again. on Women’s Hour the other week, Jane Garvey asked whether it’s possible to wear lipstick and be a feminist. not that old canard, i thought. don’t people realise that sometimes what seems oppressive — high heels, corsets — can also, for reasons of status and (self) control, give great pleasure?
can’t they see that fashion and beauty are two industries in which women operate on an equal (or possibly superior) level to men? just look at Helena Rubinstein. Or Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder, Coco Chanel and, more recently, Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg and, for that matter, Donatella. on the other hand, women on the lowest rungs of the fashion ladder — in the sweatshops — might not feel so empowered by their labour. or perhaps they do — knowing that they could have even more exploitative jobs, in the sex industry for instance.

the power to unsettle is good by the way. part of fashion’s job is to challenge society’s norms. sometimes it does this in the only way it knows — pendulum swings that last one season. it’s hard to say whether Prada’s latest demure, almost prim (and all the more erotic for it), collection will stick. Marc Jacobs pulled off a similar trick the week before in New York and the fashion editors, for the most part, swooned. grown-up, covered-up clothes at last. only Luke Leitch, my esteemed colleague, demurred. didn’t i think, he asked, that all those folds of fabric might, actually, be anti-feminist, or at least anti-female, or at least anti the female body? i haven’t decided, but at least fashion is asking some interesting questions.