Empowered Fashion or Sexist Culture?

Has fashion killed feminism trying to solve it's sexist industry? A question I ask myself frequently. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, women contribute millions of dollars to the fashion and beauty industry but even with this large investment towards the industry it seems to find new ways to disrespect them.

Vogue Netherland's September 2018 campaign titled "A Woman's World" featured a nude woman carrying or "flaunting" accessories while getting ready. Some editorials aren't meant to be deep or have a meaning but simply beautiful pictures, like said in the documentary In Voge: The Editors Eye. I have to disagree, I think some of them are deep and this campaign was one of them.

The series of photos were highlighted as way to embrace or show love to women and their "world." It featured her nude, I'm assuming, because being nude is being in full essence but how many women's world looks similar to those of the picture. We don't want to simplify some women's glamorous lives but even celebrities and rich women don't look like that. It's perpetrating an image of a woman to fit an empowering or body confident narrative that isn't fitting the story.

Looking through the pictures it made me uncomfortable and wonder what was going through when making these artistic decision. I have a feeling it might used to reflect the sexism in the fashion industry in a university class in the future.

Its not just this editorial, many are blanketed as empowerment. Next time look at the way the industry exploits empowerment: body positivity, social justice movements, sexuality.