The Cold War Fought by Women for Sexual Selection
Reply #36 - November 23, 2013, 08:24 PM
Well there is a degree of fantasy involved in high fashion, and to an extent I think that's it's fine for designers to try out concepts and entertain the punters a bit. It's partly theatre, not just clothing. Designers usually also produce more practical wear as the staple of their lines.
The choice of body types for models is a weird one IMO. I mean if you really are a good designer, you should be able to make anyone who is in reasonable nick look good in your gear.
Historically, the fashion industry seems to have been one of the few industries that actually didn't have any strong barriers to women. For example, one of the first names that springs to mind when fashion is mentioned is Coco Chanel. She's a total legend, and there have been others who have achieved a lot of recognition (like Vivienne Westwood, just off the top of my head). So, you have an industry which has a history of allowing women to rise to the top, and you have a plentiful supply of past and present female designers.
But anyway, I did read those articles you linked to. One thing mentioned was that fashion magazine editors, who are responsible for a lot of the publicity various designers get, seem to give most of their attention to the male designers. Thing is, these editors are mostly women, and presumably they are the ones responsible for how they choose to direct their own attention.
Plus, if any woman really is pissed off about men having too much influence in the fashion industry and wants to do something about it, there are obviously plenty of female designers producing work any such woman could choose from if she bothered to make the effort. If she chooses to ignore their work, that's up to her.
Short version: seems to me that to the extent that men do dominate fashion, it's a situation that has been engineered by women making their own choices.
Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.