When you put politics and fashion together, you tend to be met with a wardrobe of well-worn tropes.
One: The Wives. Despite the increasing number of women throwing themselves in to the dust, sweat and toil of politics, this election, it seems, we will be bombarded by a dress-by-dress comparison of Sarah Brown, Samantha Cameron and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (yes, Nick Clegg has a wife too, wouldjabelieve it).
Two: Ethical fashion. Is your cotton organic? Has your garment been made using child labour? Is your denim dye poisoning rivers? Has your beading been sewn on by a seven-year-old? Important questions, of course, but ones that are all too often used by fashion journalism for a bit of tokenistic green-washing
Three: Slogan t-shirts. From the AIDS awareness days of Katherine Hamnett to the totally castrated re-working by Henry Holland, for many people a message is best delivered by a pair of breasts.
Which brings me on to the main thrust of today’s dressing-down. Someone bled the politics out of fashion. Don’t get me wrong – the pale and waxy corpse is still there, it just doesn’t have any real message pumping through its veins. Instead of Choose Life, we’re now told to Save the Rave. A phrase that evoked fears about drugs, AIDS and war has been replaced by faux nostalgia over 90s dance music.
They may not know it, but most fashion-conscious young women are currently dressing like radical feminists of the late 1980s. Ripped tights, heavy black boots, undercuts, little floral dresses with heavy woollen cardigans, big t-shirts and lycra leggings. These were once the hallmarks of a strong, feminist, alternative fashion movement; a reaction against the sharp-shouldered, ultra-feminine couture of supermodels like Jerry Hall.
Now, however, these symbols of once-subversive gender politics have been plucked and drained like your finest Halal chicken. Denim cut-offs have got shorter, armpits have got balder, tops have got more see-through, slogans have become meaningless, legs are smooth and of course, all too often the person wearing it is “not a feminist…but”.
Of course, fashion has commodified and tranquilised the radical in order to sell it to the mainstream for years. The gender-bending, histrionic glamour of the Blitz club was sold on the highstreet in frilly shirts and buckled shoes. The anti-fashion look of Seattle grunge became Avril Lavigne.
But it is particularly odd that at a time when feminism is so often dismissed or disregarded by young women (who presumably find the idea of equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities and education, access to contraception and freedom from sexual abuse ‘a bit passe’) so many of them look like sexed up members of a CND march.
Like the snake that is forced to sink its fangs in to wood, the lesbian-friendly, feminist garb of the late 80s has lost its bite. And that leaves a rather nasty taste in my mouth.
Nell Frizzell
