Lisa Armstrong
Normal? In the fashion world, there’s no such thing
Is being normal and fashionable a contradiction in terms? That’s what the industry would like us to believe. Three weeks ago, Alexandra Shulman, the former editor of Vogue, posted a reasonably “normal” picture of herself wearing a bikini, looking reasonably normal (ie not stick-like, bit of a tummy, hair scraped back, no make-up).
Cue bikini-gate. To date, the post has garnered 8,243 likes and 431 comments, most praising her courage (for what … looking “normal”?), a few sniping that she should have done more to disseminate images of normal women while she was editrix of the glossy bible. It was discussed on the Today programme and by news organisations around the world, for heaven’s sake. I say normal – but what’s normal about posting a picture of yourself in a state of undress (who but a handful of models likes themselves in a bikini?) for a potential audience of millions to pass judgment on?
Shulman insists she was taken aback by the kerfuffle. “I thought the bedroom looked pretty in that typically Greek way, faded paint and ironwork,” she writes in her new column on businessoffashion.com, “and that the slightly fuzzy image had a free-spirited appeal. I had not thought it would catch the attention of the world’s press.”
There are bound to be a few raised eyebrows at this point. Shulman, the daughter of two journalists, is a skilled sniffer-outer of news stories herself. Surely her nose couldn’t have failed her on this crucial morning? Then again, if your currency is on the rise, as hers undeniably is, then it must be hard to keep up with its daily bounce. But more than Shulman’s news worthiness, this tale tells us that the concept of normality is under siege. In this hyped-up, pumped-up, Trumpian, Kardashianified, scripted-reality of a dystopia, reality seems to be shape-shifting by the day.
Instagram, the site Shulman chose for her bikini moment, was heralded, when it launched seven years ago, as a triumph for authenticity, accessibility and – that beloved trope of fashion and beauty brands – the “real woman”.
Instagram would, it was thought, sound the death knell of middle men (PRS) and of flattering filters, and allow everyone, rich or poor, famous or obscure, to communicate with each other on a level platform. But then the PRS and filters got involved, and Instagram turned out to be as deceiving as every other medium has ever been. If the entire world has problems defining normality these days, fashion finds it harder than most. A couple of years ago, it even had to coin a term for normality.
“Normcore” was meant to take normality to an “ironic” (ie heightened) new plateau, which in the fashion sphere had very little to do with actual normality – although in real life, it turned out that there really were people who dressed like this. At which point, fashion rapidly moved on. Because fashion is all about making its disciples feel not normal, but special. That’s why, when Balenciaga produces what, to the uneducated eye, looks like a bog-standard anorak, it has to daub an extra-large logo on it and charge £1,800, lest anyone think it came from Mountain Warehouse and cost £59.
“Of course, as a card-carrying member of the fashion industry for over a quarter of a century, ‘normal’ is not how you are expected to look,” writes Shulman. “Leaving aside the strict definition of normal, it was the [bikini] image’s spontaneity and lack of style – or, indeed, any style, according to some – that was deemed remarkable. Why would someone who is part of the fashion world do such a thing? Surely, it couldn’t simply be a moment of unfiltered holiday reportage. It must have been delivered as some kind of personal brand message.”
Oh yes, the rise of the personal brand. It’s not enough to be someone any more. You have to be a nascent corporation with sponsorship to keep you in photogenic shoes and bags.
This requires developing your own identifiable iconography. As Shulman observes, “when we picture the most well-known and established figures in fashion, many adopt a purposely crafted, almost cartoonlike appearance, as instantly recognisable to fashion followers as the ears of Mickey Mouse or the teeth of Bugs Bunny. Their ‘look’ is a careful construct: unchanging, easily recognisable, little left to chance. But normal it is not.” Through years of observing Karl Lagerfeld’s immutable powdered ponytail, Anna Wintour’s imperturbable bob and Suzy Menkes’s quiff, Shulman has found herself wondering: “Is it a shield or a sword?” Both, probably. Holding two apparently contradictory beliefs simultaneously – or, as George Orwell would have called it, “double-thinking” – is increasingly a hallmark of our era.
Thus, normality and fakery coexist alongside one another as a symbiotic cohort. Fashion is a master of doublethink. Its entire premise is one of exceptionality and individuality. Yet the engine that drives it is the action of everyone dressing like everyone else.
Fashion needs you to think you’re being different while encouraging you to act the same. Style? That’s something else altogether.