The news that Donald Trump was triumphant at the recently held elections in the USA found me whilst I was having lunch with a group of friends who were in support of him. They are all Russians and they fancied the possibility of a renewed friendship between the two countries.
Beneath my silenced tongue and forced smile, I was filled with rage. My initial reaction to the news was an immediate feeling that racism had developed into something that will now be socially acceptable and will soon prove itself even more difficult to fight.
It felt as if someone had spat in my face, while everyone just looked on and cheered. Weird, since I haven’t been to the States in years and I’m not even American. The common question from my friends was why do you even care so much? It doesn’t affect you. While I understood where
they were coming from, being a woman of colour, regardless of if you are directly or indirectly connected to those who hold racist views it still somehow affects you because human beings tend to draw off the opinions of those who hold much influence — whether good or not. Like it or not, Trump’s numerous snide remarks will have an effect on someone who hasn’t even visited the States. We have a fascination of wanting an association with power.
The next immediate thought that ran across my mind when the news broke was of the fashion players in the industry. A majority of the Spring/Summer 2017 collections from New York to Milan to Paris carried strong and evident support for Hillary Clinton. Many took on a feminist approach and associated them with their designs. The projection of the pant suit which was often worn by Clinton becoming the new ‘it’ fashion ensemble had seem popular similar styles on the runway.
Jil Sander’s pinstripe skirt suit set was my favourite. The runways, by way of the designers, were ready to celebrate another milestone of girl power and while some support was through creative abilities, Hillary had also received open endorsements from the fashion community. Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue was one of the few heavyweights who openly endorsed her. She even took on the role as style and image consultant for Clinton. The anticipation that she would win was high, but now the momentum has changed and shifted. It is almost as if she has completely disappeared.
The desire to wear a pantsuit has left my thoughts, if I am to be honest with you. You see, that is the thing with fashion these days, a trend momentum can lose itself anytime. In this case, the fashion industry was betting that perhaps if Hillary won, her style choices could easily influence the market. Everyone was gearing up to feed off her presidential publicity had she won. While she was the safe bet for most — it also revealed how systematically and carefully the industry operates they can milk situations to fill their cups. One has to ask why other social, political and economic challenges were not on their minds, or whether they have lost control of using their own worldly views to influence their collections. Now women have switched their eyes to Melania Trump. Vogue has already started her style diary after playing a relatively quiet style watch on her.
From an industry perspective, it seems as if the most responsible thing to do is to not only create trends based on the current hot, social and political issues but to also base them on ideas and issues that can provoke opposing outcomes.
I feel as if we are about to head into a skin-tight, vampy, sex-appeal style season with Melania as new first lady of the USA. It will be most interesting to see which designers will opt to be ‘with her’ since the majority of American brands, Ralph Lauren for instance, clearly made it known – that they were with Hillary Clinton.
It will be interesting to see which designers maintain their creative integrity and place publicity aside.
