London College of Fashion has an extensive periodicals collection; the oldest magazine I found was an edition of L’Officiel from April 1951. It’s interesting how the advertising is so dated and clearly from the 50’s but Chanel’s marketing and packaging has stayed the same, with the addition of Keira Knightly from time to time. I suppose this is a clever way of keeping themselves timeless and elegant.
It was fascinating to look at issues of magazines from the 50s-90s; you can tell so much about what was happening in culture, society and also technology at that time. One thing I found interesting was the way that magazines were beginning to acknowledge the environmental impacts of the fashion industry. One example is a page from an early 90s edition of the Italian fashion magazine ‘Collezioni Donna’. They have featured catwalk photographs of high-end fur coats with the title ‘Luxurious or ecological?’ It is not very well translated, but they are commenting on a shift in fashion away from fur; funny to look back to when that question was being asked – now there is no question. Last year, London Fashion Week banned real fur after a campaign run by Paloma Faith and PETA. Where once it was the celebrities flaunting fur, they are now the ones pushing for its decease.
In the last few years, PETA have launched another campaign, outing the coat brand Canada Goose for using coyote fur and feathers from mistreated animals. In this video an animal rights activist who calls himself ‘The Veganologist’ confronts owners of Canada Goose coats. Although I defiantly have a problem with his methods of publicly shaming and antagonising the consumer, it is interesting to see how defensive and guilty people are about wearing fur, claiming ‘it was a present’ and ‘I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life’ showing how massively attitudes have changed towards fur. I do agree with PETA on this, and of course no animal should be harmed for fashion, but it seems odd to me that the people being confronted are not the millions wearing t-shirts stitched by a Bangladeshi five-year-old in horrific conditions.
This page is also from an edition of Collezioni Donna from the 90s. The way they reference other cultures’ clothing as ‘costume’ feels like blatent cultural appropriation. The reference to ‘mysterious nights of the Orient’ and ‘fairy tale places’ carries problematic western ideals of decadent and exotic Asian countries. This ‘desire’ that the Italian fashion houses have for their styles is just a nice way of saying ‘wants to appropriate’. This feels strikingly similar to the recent Dolce and Gabbana ad scandal, where there was huge uproar after they released a video on instagram advertising their upcoming show in China. The video showed a Chinese girl struggling to eat Italian food with chopsticks, and a condescending male voiceover. The message it gives out of Italy educating and inflicting western culture on China is hugely problematic. Both examples have a scarily colonial sense – the west can take their beautiful clothes and jewellery, and then laugh as they try to eat a pizza.
These are two pages in an edition of ID magazine from between 1988-1989. They quote facts about plastic pollution and energy consumption alongside trash art and re-worked fashion. If I looked at more magazines from the 80s and 90s I’m sure I would find similar spreads. It seems like being ethical could have been trendy, but it never quite caught on, and since the publication of this magazine, consumerism and consumtion have rapidly grown. It’s funny that although the figures from back then are clearly alarming, it’s taken almost 30 years for the public to become aware.
These two pages are from a magazine called International Textiles from 1991. It is so interesting to see the current trends in textiles from then, and how dated they look, but as with many styles and fashions, a lot of elements can be seen in designs today. The image on the left is part of a section showing developments in digital textiles, this is where you can really tell the age compared to hand drawn print, it is amazing to think how far we’ve come since. On the right is from a section on the work of textile design students from around the world, this is an amazing snapshot into what was being taught at the time.
References:
The Veganologist (2018) Confronting Canadian Canada goose wearers for the first time. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qa5WpZtkRw (Accessed: 28 January 2019).
Leaper, C. (2018) ‘Could fur finally be banned from London fashion week?’, The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/london-fashion-week/could-fur-finally-banned-london-fashion-week/ (Accessed: 28 January 2018).
Sconlon, S. (2018) ‘London fashion week vows to be fur-free’, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/sep/07/london-fashion-week-vows-to-be-fur-free (Accessed: 28 January 2019).
PETA (2017) Maggie Q to Canada Goose: Murder Is Never In Fashion. Available at: https://www.peta.org/blog/maggie-q-canada-goose-murder-never-fashion/ (Accessed: 28 January 2019).
Annas Textiles Blog 