Short Series: Fashion & Sense Don't Always Come Together

Why it’s even necessary to talk about this is beyond me but here we are, talking about it. How it’s unnecessary, insensitive, and obtuse to send hoodies emblazoned with the names of schools, Sandy Hook, Columbine and Stoneman Douglas to be exact, down the runway a few days ago as part of NYFW with bullet holes in them. And have the audacity to call it fashion. 

Courtesy of Bstroy's Instagram

Can fashion be used to make political statements? Yes, of course. See Viktor & Rolf’s Spring 2019 Collection, with loud, statement-making dresses calling back to the #Metoo and the #LegalizeIt movements.

Courtesy of Vogue Runway

Courtesy of Vogue Runway

Can fashion be thought-provoking and cutting edge? Yes, clearly. See Pyer Moss’s Spring 2018 Collection. Specifically tee shirt that said “stop calling 911 on the culture.”

Courtesy of Teen Vogue

Can Bstroy’s particular use of fashion be useful? Only in showing the insensitivity showcased by the two designers who creatively direct the brand, designers who thought this was a good idea. When I saw the headline concerning this faux pas pop up, I thought for sure I read it wrong. Then I opened the link. Not since the Gucci blackface bacchanal mask and the H&M monkey hoodie had I been this flustered, this irritated, this livid, about articles of clothing. 

Make it make sense. 

Remember this? The clawback was swift

This still irritates me frankly

One of the designers, Brick Owens, released show notes that give a little insight into the decision behind bullet-hole hoodies on the runway. I won’t do him the honor of reposting it here but essentially, he attempted to make a statement on how schools, one of the places you should feel the safest, are in fact, hardly safe at all these days. I saw a campaign ad from Kamala Harris on this very subject earlier today that gave me goosebumps as a school-shooting was loosely reenacted to prove a point. Owens goes on to rhapsodize own samsara, the push and pull of life, it’s fragility and shortness and it’s infinite potential which, one can argue, is best seen in children, in the future. 

And yet the fact remains, this could have gone so many other ways. Instead of Bstory making bullet-hole hoodies, you could have created teenage-streetwear. Or even literally kept the hoodies with the school names, but left out the bullet-holes. A rather brilliant idea would have been reimagining what those students and teachers whose lives were lost would be wearing today. What would their styles be like I wonder…  It could have been so simple, if only they'd thought it through an inch more.

xx