Capitalist Fashion Industry knocked down by Lucinda Chambers

For all the theoreticians, fashion would be like another way to live the bourgeois society -often dictated by the western world. It could be an excuse for the rich to exploit the poor or a lens to look through capitalism. Karl Marx would say “The textile industry inaugurated the factory system of exploitation..” while talking about the Industrial Revolution.

There is a large following with these fashion- capitalism belief, and very few with the opposite notion. We are the few. We are definitely on the other side. That doesn’t mean that we don’t notice the dynamic of fashion and capitalism. However, we look upon capitalism, as a fashion synergy -not the other way. We are interested in people’s relationship with their clothes, their psychology and fashion’s relationship to identity. We are interested in the minutiae piece of clothing as we are in the grand themes of fashion.

Lucinda Chambers, served as fashion director the British Vogue for 25 years and lately was fired unexpectedly. A few days later she gave an interview in Vestoj and made our heart bloom with her statements. “Truth be told, I haven’t read Vogue in years. Maybe I was too close to it after working there for so long, but I never felt I led a Vogue-y kind of life. The clothes are just irrelevant for most people – so ridiculously expensive. What magazines want today is the latest, the exclusive. It’s a shame that magazines have lost the authority they once had. They’ve stopped being useful.” and continues “In fashion, we are always trying to make people buy something they don’t need. We don’t need any more bags, shirts or shoes. So we cajole, bully or encourage people to continue buying. I know glossy magazines are meant to be aspirational, but why not be both useful and aspirational? That’s the kind of fashion magazine I’d like to see”.

This is proof that those glossy magazines you read -or you don’t- work that kind of people who suffocate in this capitalist society. They are true to fashion but not in the way you imagine. People who aim to encourage and champion the critical and independent voice within fashion, as well as absolute creative freedom.

As for Lucinda? Half the world accuses her of washing Vogue’s dirty laundry in public. That half is the one that thinks of fashion as something like “The Devil Wears Prada”. The ones that blame fashion for their consumption instincts. You would think that Chambers said all this because she is hurt from the dismissal. The fact is that she has nothing to lose, and the story she tells is illuminating, especially in the context of an industry as mythical as print fashion media. And she stands against this mythical concept. She is nothing like Alexandra Schulman, who although never admitted that she was fired as well in January -from the position editor in chief which she served for 25 years- never said a thing about how things in fashion industry really are.

It is time to face the stains on fashion’s linen. First, we fire them. Then we make new ones. Brightly black.