Why blackface should never be in fashion
Is it that difficult in the 21st century to design outfits that don’t cause offence?
You’d think it wouldn’t be hard to make clothes that aren’t racist. Clothes are, after all, functional and have only so many components. As long as there are pockets and the right number of correctly sized holes for your head, waist and limbs, it should all be pretty basic, surely?
Designers can add their flair to the aesthetic but, generally, it should be possible to create clothing that doesn’t offend whole groups of people. So, what’s with the recent examples of fashion folks having to withdraw items for being racist?
The fashion industry has a long history of offensive, stupid behaviour. Accusations of cultural appropriation are frequent, and a quick scan of the interweb uncovers many examples of cases when designers tried too hard to be clever and got it wrong.
In January 2018 there was H&M’s advertisement featuring a black child model, whom they dressed with a racist hoodie. The incident caused big music names such as The Weeknd and rapper G Eazy to cut ties with the company. I’d never heard of G Eazy before this, but I liked what he tweeted: ‘‘I hope this situation will serve as a wakeup call to get on track and become racially and culturally aware. As well as more diverse at every level.’’
But a year on and there have already been a couple of doozies, and it’s not even the end of February.
Early this month there was Gucci’s stupid ‘‘face warmers’’, which resembled blackface. Gucci apologised saying it was committed to diversity, which was a ‘‘fundamental value’’.
A few days later, Katy Perry Collections pulled two shoe styles from sale because of their clear resemblance to blackface. The company said they were withdrawn ‘‘in order to be sensitive and respectful’’. As opposed to being completely racist and stupid.
A cynic would even suggest it’s a deliberate tactic: design something that’s bound to cause controversy and blow up on the internet, guaranteeing lots of coverage and free marketing. The only price the guilty party has to pay is a pithy apology.
If diversity was really important to those companies, they would – as G Eazy tweeted – have it at every level, including within the design department, so this sort of thing doesn’t happen.
The origins of blackface can be traced to minstrel shows in the United States in the mid to late 19th century, when white actors would use black grease on their faces to depict slaves and free black people on stage. Their mocking portrayals reinforced the idea running through society at the time that AfricanAmericans were inferior.
I didn’t know this at all, until I learned it. In Asterix books, one of my favourite characters was the guy who did lookout duty on the pirate ship, because he was the only brown character.
I didn’t realise the way he was drawn was a racist interpretation of black people. That (combined with the terrible live-action Asterix films starring Ge´ rard Depardieu) have put me off Asterix forever.
But I now know that blackface is racist and surely in 2019, everyone should.
It’s almost as if fashion designers have picked up on all the overt racism seeping back into the world – through the likes of Trumpism, Brexit and the rise of populism in Europe – and thought it was OK to use it for inspiration again.
Come on, fashion world, you can do better. I hear that in 2019 on-trend clothing will include over-sized hats, sensible shorts, tight pleats, tie-dye, fancy flat shoes, summer waterproofs, fringing, neon, puffed shoulders and sequins.
That’s plenty to be getting on with, without the need for racism.