Do Women Still Need Fashion Designers to Empower Them?

Text by Eugene Rabkin

One of the narratives that emerged in the aftermath of the chaotic season of debuts and sophomore collections during the women’s fashion shows last fall was whether the current crop of designers is capable of understanding the lives of modern women. Some critics pointed out the propensity of male designers in top houses to show outfits that visibly restrict movement or otherwise hamper the female body, not to mention quite a bit of gratuitous nudity.

Other designers leaned into the counter-narrative, positioning themselves as empowering women. According to one article, this is what Sarah Burton said backstage after her Givenchy show. And in an Instagram post analysing Louise Trotter’s debut, the brand strategist Ana Andjelic spoke about an interview Trotter had given some years ago about designing for women who engage in ordinary activities, like riding a bicycle around town. Though I am hard pressed to see how anyone can ride a bike in the collection that Trotter showed for her Bottega Veneta debut—or whether any woman who can afford luxury fashion today rides one to begin with—that does not make her collection any less beautiful. Quibbles aside, logic dictates that if designing to restrict movement is seen as disempowering to women, then designing with the view of facilitating movement must be a form of empowerment.

Female empowerment is undoubtedly a worthy cause. But it seems to me that in assuming the role of empowerers, fashion designers still hold the view that in this day and age, women need them in order to feel empowered to begin with. And while it is a well-meaning sentiment, it also feels presumptuous and patronising.

Of course, presumption and patronage is exactly what the modern fashion system has engaged in since its founding by Charles Frederick Worth in mid-19th-century Paris. Worth was a pompous megalomaniac who reduced his aristocratic female clientele to tears by essentially telling them that they were nothing without his superior aesthetic powers, and therefore in need of his patronage, and not the other way around. Ever since then, the self-perpetuated mythologising of fashion designers has been very much about female liberation. Paul Poiret got rid of the corset and the petticoat, Coco Chanel did the uber-freeing little black dress, Christian Dior gave the freedom to women to dress up again in the post-WWII austerity, Mary Quant loosened things up with the mini-skirt, and so on. All were hailed not as astute readers of the zeitgeist, but as creators of one. Presumptuous, indeed.

At times, fashion resembles a cargo cult, in which we worship deities that are not deities at all. The fashion industry is phenomenal at self-promotion and even better at self-importance. In this, it overcompensates for the simple fact that most people don’t really care about it. If you don’t believe me, go out into the street, stop the first ten people you see, and ask them who is the current creative director of the House of Dior. Fashion must create meaning to overcompensate for lack thereof. But it increasingly feels that some of this meaning-making is atavistic, like with designers empowering women. There may have been a time indeed when women lacked agency and relied on designers to tell them what to wear. But I find it hard to believe that today, many spend sleepless nights in anticipation of how a fashion designer will empower them. And what exactly is meant by empowerment? Empower what kind of woman, and empower her to do what? Gianni Versace dressed trophy wives or those who aspired to become one, which can also be seen as a form of empowerment.

When Phoebe Philo left Celine, the mainstream fashion media gave out a collective cry of anguish; who will dress smart, modern, independent women now? To which my exasperated wife retorted that if they are all of the above, surely they’ll figure it out for themselves. It seems strange that today, fashion designers still hold the belief that women need them, that they are beneficent patrons of women’s lives, and that without them, women are somehow disempowered. Do we hear talk of empowerment on the part of menswear designers? Not that I can recall, at least not with the same vigour as Viagra, Axe deodorant, and anti-balding supplements do. Did Giorgio Armani talk about male empowerment when, in the mid-1970s, he took the stuffing out of the suit? His look took off like wildfire because it was self-evident that his clothes were modern, and they did not need the empowerment mythology to surround them. So, if fashion truly wants to cater to “strong, modern, independent women” as each second press release proclaims, perhaps it needs to simply do so instead of talking about it?