Fashion flirts with provocation and pushes the boundaries, we’re told. Fashion is about risk-taking and making a bold statement.
While this sometimes creates art, often it sorely misses the mark. At Milan Fashion Week, Gucci set the stage with an all-white runway and adorned its models in white straitjacket and other “uniforms, utilitarian clothes, normative dresses” to show how “through fashion, power is exercised over life to eliminate self-expression,” according to their Instagram post.
However, not all the models were on board with this messaging. Ayesha Tan-Jones, a 26-year-old non-binary model, artist, and musician walked the runway with her hands up in protest, with a message in bold on her palms that read: Mental health is not fashion.”
Tan-Jones wrote on Instagram that,
“As an artist and model who has experienced my own struggles with mental health, as well as family members and loved ones who have been affected by depression, anxiety, bipolar and schizophrenia, it is hurtful and insensitive for a major fashion house such as Gucci to use this imagery as a concept for a fleeting fashion moment.”Ayesha Tan-Jones
The modeling industry especially is not one to be nurturing of mental health, and Tan-Jones added on Instagram that straitjackets were a reminder of a “cruel time in medicine when mental illness was not understood, and people were tortured and abused.”
Tan-Jones was moved to protest after another model walked out of the show in disgust. She told Buzzfeed News that she gathered the courage for her peaceful protest as she had the support of the other models.
Gucci’s creative director and designer Alessandro Michele told The New York Times that he “wanted to show how society today can have the ability to confine individuality and that Gucci can be the antidote." He added, “ These clothes were a statement for the fashion show and part of a performance.”
However, art does not exist in a silo and Tan-Jones remained unimpressed given the clothes imagery to a painful past and present for many people struggling with mental health issues.
“Presenting these struggles as props for selling clothes in today’s capitalist climate is vulgar, unimaginative and offensive to millions of people around the world affected by these issues.”Ayesha Tan-Jones
After receiving praise, she added in another Instagram post, “ I want to use this opportunity to remind people that this sort of bravery, is only a simple gesture compared to the bravery that people with mental health issues show every day. To have the bravery to get out of bed, to greet the day, and to live their lives is an act of strength, and I want to thank you for being here and being YOU!”
Earlier this year, at the London Fashion Week, Burberry was called out by a model for its hoodie resembling a noose, prompting people to assert, “suicide is not fashion.”
This is not the first time the brand has been called out. In February, Gucci was forced to respond to backlash for its balaclava jumper that critics said resembled blackface. Gucci apologised for the same. They have also been accused of appropriation of religious when they used Sikh turbans on white models. This becomes problematic as Sikh people wearing those turbans are often racially attacked for the same, while Gucci profits off the imagery.
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