Please, No Laughs: This is Fashion

Text by Philippe Pourhashemi

In 2024, the feel-good essence of fashion has vanished from the runways. Instead of wit, you will often find cynicism within the recent collections of designers working for major conglomerates -bearing in mind that the joke is almost always on the end consumer- but the idea that fashion can be goofy, cheeky -or simply irreverent- has been reduced to nothingness by a growing cult, which I will refer to as the New Moralists.

The New Moralists are on a mission to make fashion pay for its sins. Whether it be journalists, designers, educators or commentators, the New Moralists want you to confess to your crimes before engaging in an endless exercise of self-flagellation. How dare you be a happy, superficial and frivolous member of this industry when you know how much damage, despair and destruction fashion brings to our world? How dare you be apolitical and not preach diversity, inclusiveness and democratisation? And how dare you go against -or criticise- what we profess on every platform out there, you little hater?

If it’s undeniable that social media should be blamed for making designers feel uneasy—and constantly worry about being called out—it’s also the first time within our industry’s turbulent path that fun fashion has thrown in the towel. When it was a more private and offline affair, with fashion mainly targeting an audience of experienced and educated professionals, humour was an essential tool for designers to make their mark and possibly build empires of their own. Think of Elsa Schiaparelli’s surrealist jokes, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Gallic insolence, Vivienne Westwood’s cheekiness, and Franco Moschino’s lethal sense of parody. 

Moschino was, in fact, commercially viable pretty much from the start, using his tongue-in-cheek approach within advertising, fashion shows, perfume launches and various product categories. He was also keen on mocking some of his peers who seemed to take fashion far too seriously. Moschino ridiculed Karl Lagerfeld throughout his short-lived career and enjoyed subverting the Chanel suit, which he turned into a series of camp -and highly entertaining- ensembles. Behind his humorous façade, Moschino was a visionary talent, too, who denounced the recklessness and ruthlessness of the fashion industry, as well as its double standards. He mocked the Fendi sisters -who already worked with Lagerfeld at the time- and pushed the use of fake fur to emphasise animal welfare. And precisely because he had impeccable taste -and knew how to make clothes- Moschino could challenge the fashion system using wit and jokes as his weapons of choice. Ironically, Lagerfeld would soon become one of fashion’s wittiest -and at times funniest- designers until he died in 2019, making controversial jokes about celebrities and telling the press how he had become his own caricature.

Lagerfeld was deeply opinionated and a larger-than-life figure, which the New Moralists would quickly castigate if he were still designing today. It is sad and depressing to think that deeply creative and masterful collections, such as Gaultier’s Fall 1993 ‘Chic Rabbis’, would cause mayhem on social media and possibly threaten a designer’s career nowadays. It is a fact that the more fashion talks to the masses, the less humorous it ends up becoming. Humour has become too dangerous for designers simply because social media has turned victimhood into an art form. Being offended by everything -and everyone- is what’s fashionable today, and the New Moralists are keen on removing the very possibility of critique by confusing it with hatred. Except that you and I know that critique is about improvement, striving for the best and becoming stronger. If our industry is able to critique itself—and address its own hypocrisies—it has a chance to overcome false political correctness and welcome humour back into its arms.

I resent the New Moralists for pointing their fingers at fashion and claiming it is to blame for most evils in our world. Fashion pollutes. Fashion discriminates. Fashion excludes. Fashion judges. When did we start believing as an industry that designer fashion was meant for everyone? The truth is that designer clothes aren’t for everybody, and their current price point, which keeps increasing yearly, relies on the logic of aspiration and distinction. The New Moralists want to pretend that fashion can’t escape the political -but they are in denial of their own shelf life. Why should we demand fashion to fix society’s problems? And why do we keep using it as a scapegoat? Fashion is—and always will be—commerce based on desire, impulses and emotions. It is not about need but longing, vanity and frivolity. It has no real justification besides the fact that it flatters our senses and gives us more satisfaction. It can also be used as a tool to express political ideas while often reflecting the society it was created in, but fashion itself isn’t political.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot as an industry that fashion could be about joy, pleasure and delight, as well as shameless fun. Fashion is a field that should enhance our lives, improve our mood and make us smile. When I sit down at fashion shows and observe my colleagues, I see resigned and jaded faces. But it’s not just them: the models also look grim and uninspired. When did shows become such robotic events, devoid of spontaneity and surprise? Now is the time to reinject some much-needed humour and wit into this industry. Let’s give designers the space they need to play and make us laugh again. Let’s remove fear from their heads, which affects their creative powers. Let’s celebrate the joy that makes fashion so unique. And let’s ignore the haters, who will never get what humour is.