Fashion maketh woman

The title of the last debate in Intelligence Squared series seemed to good for this blogger to pass up. Thanks for my friend Susan who was busy on the night and kindly gave me her tickets, I was able to attend with fashion conscious eldest daughter and listen to arguments for and against the motion.  The debate was chaired by 80s author Peter York whose main claim to fame is to have invented the term "Sloane Ranger", the British preppy 80ies stereotype.  I must say that I was not terribly impressed by his performance - essentially a self-promoter, he could not lift the debate beyond his own superficial views.

Speakers for the motion included Paula Reed, Style director of Grazia, whose most effective contribution was the very sincere evocation of a childhood in Northern Ireland that was enlivened by the buzzing hairdressing salon that represented beauty in an otherwise scary and ugly environment.

Britt Lintner, a Swedish City executive who launched her own fashion line was consistently on message, selling her concept of timeless classics for the busy modern woman, gunning for the opposite camp at times.

Last to speak was Madeleine Levy, editor-in-Chief of fashion and arts magazine Bon International.  She gave a more robust defense of fashion as the repository of unique skills, crafts and knowledge about shape and colour that ultimately generates and feeds off feelings. She defended fashion as the provider of a quick fix that allows women to be the person they want to project and accused its detractors of being misogynist snobs.

Against the motion:
The star of the opposite camp (forgive the pun) was potter extraordinaire Grayson Perry whose magnificient dress designed by a Central St Martin student stole the show. I had not brought my camera so you have to imagine a brightly coloured satin concoction. His contention that "fashion maketh money, waste, carbon and lazy thinking" rang true as well as his view that "fashion is the industrialisation of playground cool".  A confident and funny speaker, he make the case for individuality and creativity against the manipulation and commercial motives of the fashion industry.

Also speaking against the motion, design commentator and author Stephen Bayley joined in the denunciation of what he called "the fashion system" and its "spurious nasty seasonality" that "says buy this and you'll be beautiful".

The last speaker was Susie Orbach whose intervention I was very much looking forward and which, I thought, fell flat. She adopted the point of view of a 10 year old girl whose self-image is dreadfully affected by a nasty fashion industry bent on imposing its reductive ideals of beauty. Whilst I agree with some of her views on the harmful effects of fashion, I felt that she missed the point and ignored the playfulness of fashion and the universal appeal of dressing up games for small and big girls.

Whilst the initial vote, before the debate, favoured the motion, it was reversed after the debate and arguments against the motion won. As far as I am concerned, my vote against the motion did not change before and after the debate.

As is often the case in those debates, a lot of the arguments revolve around semantics. Are we talking about fashion or the fashion industry? I do agree that the creativity and skill of fashion has significant intrinsic value for women and can bring them joy, emotional uplift and fun. However, the fashion industry as it has evolved, does not get much sympathy from this woman. It seems to have become a rather cynical, exploitative machine that builds brands to sell handbags and sunglasses. Whilst some women are deluding themselves and really buy into the "must have" trends and other fashion diktats, I have the feeling that most have a more playful approach that allows them to take what they want from the industry and leave what they don't want. The self-defeating acceleration of fashion seasons and "trends" has made them almost irrelevant - women can make their own fashion, create their own style and only wear what works for them: woman maketh fashion!