What does politics have to do with fashion? The answer is everything.
Fashion conjures society’s dreams, challenges its norms, and reflects what it believes about itself. As Dr. Rosie Findlay, course leader in fashion cultures at London College of Fashion told Vogue:
For [fashion] to have power and feel right, it has to speak to what is going on more broadly.
There are many examples of political movements where fashion and politics merged to make powerful social statements. Here are just a few examples of such political movements:
The Women’s Suffrage Movement
Fashion has always been intimately linked to issues and political movements relating to sex and gender. Particularly, fashion has been used as a tool in the feminist fight for gender equality. The Women’s Suffrage Movement was a feminist movement that emerged in the US and Britain in the early 1900s. It was a movement of women demanding their right to vote.
The Suffragettes used fashion as a campaign tool. They redefined their appearance and systematically broke from the traditional fashion styles set by the patriarchy. Women went from wearing big, restrictive Victorian dresses to more comfortable, streamlined outfits that allowed them more freedom of movement. Women also began to wear clothing traditionally reserved for men, such as trousers.
For the first time women gained agency over their style – no longer forced to wear clothing that men considered to be attractive. By changing the way that women dressed, the Women’s Suffrage Movement highlighted a new era of women’s place in society. And in 1913, five thousand women marched in Washington D.C. to demand the right to vote.
Second-Wave Feminism
The 1960s saw a second wave of feminist action play off in the fashion arena, with the appearance of the mini-skirt. The mini-skirt was interpreted as a form of political activism – a way of rebelling. The mini-skirt responded to a patriarchal system that discriminated against women’s right to vote and women’s right to employment. Women wore skirts with shorter hemlines as a public show of female liberation. The mini-skirt expressed women’s independence and sexual freedom.
By 1966, the mini-skirt had reached mid-thigh height. It sculptured the image of women as powerful and carefree.
The #AmINext Movement
Today women enjoy more political freedom than ever before. But, the fight against gender inequality continues and gender-based violence. In 2019 there was widespread protest across South Africa against gender-based violence, following the rape and murder of the 19-year-old woman, Uyinene Mrwetyana.
Thousands of protestors took to the streets wearing all-black, brandishing placards and singing Apartheid-era struggle songs to demonstrate against the scourge of femicide in South Africa. One of the placards that I saw in Cape Town read “Don’t tell me how to dress, tell them not to rape”. Many such slogans appeared at these protests circulating broadly on social media. They highlighted again the link between fashion and gender-related politics.
The Black Panthers Movement
Alongside the intersection between fashion and gender, lives the intersection between fashion and race. During an interview (see below) I conducted with aspiring architect Fikile Nyezi, he mentioned that his fashion sense is often inspired by an investigation of his culture as a Black man from the Eastern Cape in South Africa. He also mentioned that there was a time his style was heavily influenced by the Black Panther movement.
The Black Panthers Party was an African-American revolutionary organisation formed in 1966 to campaign against the racial discrimination of the mid-1960s and 1970s. They used fashion to send a strong political message about Black pride and liberation. Their all-black look was a statement uniform that worked to manifest the ethos “Black is Beautiful”. It consisted of a black leather jacket, black pants, dark sunglasses, and a black beret. The look became the iconic symbol of Black Power.
The Black Panthers would dress in their uniform and patrol Black neighbourhoods to protect residents from police brutality. Through fashion, the Black Panthers promoted a way of reclaiming Black Power and redefining beauty standards for African-American peoples.
The Black Lives Matter Movement
The fight for racial equality in the US is sadly far from over. It has taken shape in recent years as the Black Lives Matter Movement, which is a decentralised political and social movement formed in the United States to confront ongoing racial discrimination and anti-Black violence, especially that executed by the police force.
In 2016, singer Beyoncé used her halftime performance at the Superbowl to protest in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Her dancers wore Black Panther-inspired berets, with all-black leather outfits, and the entire crew raised their fists to pose for the camera. Beyoncé referenced the Black Panther movement to highlight the struggle being fought against racially motivated police brutality.
In one image that surfaced online, Beyoncé’s dancers were snapped backstage holding a picture with the slogan ‘Justice 4 Mario Woods’ – a tribute to a Black man who was shot dead by police in San Francisco. The clever use of slogan, symbolism, and styling sparked widespread conversation and created a powerful image of Black resistance.
The Anti-Vietnam War Movement
A final example, to demonstrate the power of dress, is the anti-Vietnam war movement. A social movement that stands as one of the most pervasive social movements in history. It started as a small anti-war movement by American youth and grew into an unstoppable force. The movement used peaceful protest to pressurise the United States into withdrawing from the Vietnam War and into signing the 1973 peace treaty. Their slogan was “Make love, not war”.
Hippies, a young American anti-establishment movement used fashion to symbolise their non-violent ideology and joined the anti-Vietnam protests. They wore colourful clothes, bell-bottom pants, tie-dye patterns, paisley prints, and black armbands. Clothing and fashion were a big part of their self-identification. And – like the Black Panthers – their dress became a united uniform that sent a powerful message about their non-violent ethos. It sent a message loud and clear without their needing to raise a voice.
On a small scale, this is exactly what clothing can do for you and me. Fashion has the power to tell the world who you are without you having to say a single word. You can use fashion to send a message about your personality, your beliefs, your culture, your gender, and your sexual orientation.
Fashion allows you to be whoever or whatever you want to be. And so I would like to leave you with these three questions:
What do you think the way that you dress says about you? What would you like the way that you dress to say about yourself? And do these two align?
Watch Shanay’s interview with Fikile Nyezi, an aspiring architect and creator of the fashion label Yanda, on her start-up YouTube channel:
