FASHION AS A FORCE FOR GOOD

The Fashion Industry has, in recent years, been criticized for promoting a narrow perception of female beauty. A culture of exclusivity pervades, invoking insecurities and a sense of lack, fortifying the ”you can’t sit with us” hashtag mentality.

A much more interesting story is fashion as a vehicle for authenticity, female solidarity and social inclusion. Fashion has great power to mobilize social movements. Political ideologies were born from trailblazers such as Katherine Hamnett, giving a new platform to political protest with Statement Tees and Vivienne Westwood’s unsettling of a nation through her Punk Fashion Terrorism Assault on Thatcher’s England.

Fashion’s capacity to unite rather than divide, to be a force for social change and female empowerment is something to shout about. A friendship born from a casual conversation in an Ibizan market about beautifully bohemian bejewelled sandals, women giving each other a virtual high five in the street in mutual appreciation of each other’s style savvy attire; These moments of beauty, of kinship, are a fire of inspiration, that colour our worlds with fun, vibrancy and universality.

An extract from my article for Compassionate Business Magazine Salt https://www.wearesalt.org/stitch-witchery-embroidering-social-change-in-fashion/

Image Credit: rødgrød med fløde
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