Shock horror. Leather, lace, bondage – Autumn/Winter 2011 is the season of the fetish trend. Yikes – apparently. For those of you not attached to Vogue.com, like the sad little person that I am, this trend might have slipped under the radar. I for one have yet to see a single gimp mask floating around the union this semester– but then again, I haven’t been to Fruity for a long time. But yes alongside “Forties Glamour” and “Print and Pattern”, the “Fetish” trend was one of the top looks of this winter. Cozy.
Now, I like fashion; actually, I love it. I admit it’s a frivolous love but it is love none the less. I love the art: I like designers who make beautiful things from little ideas, shape metaphors for people to wear and yet when something like the Fetish trend comes along I just get that sad, sinking feeling. Just like when you realize that Big Ben isn’t all that big or the crushing childhood realization that Muppets are puppets – it’s disappointment. It’s supposed to be better than this.
It doesn’t matter that a trend isn’t particularly new, as a proponent of the vintage look I can hardly make the old is old argument , but, for something that relies upon the shock factor, this look just a feels a bit done. Alexander McQueen had his models working the S+M look right back in the early 2000s. In a sort of post-post-modern apathy, the fetish trend is just boring. Something can only be shocking for so long before the nerve ends go numb.
If I am so unimpressed by the Fetish trend, why have I bothered to write about it? Well mainly because this trend does more than annoy me. It makes me uncomfortable. As a feminist I am not sure where I stand.
You see, on first appearances, this trend is utterly debasing. It is reductive and insulting, making femininity all about sexuality. And not even a healthy sexuality: the term fetish is used describe something guilty, embarrassing and quite wrong. But there is more to it than that. There are those who argue, that utilizing one’s sexual element is empowering. Although I have always felt this to be a bit of a false argument in terms of people who use it to say that pole-dancing is empowering, I am not sure that the argument is entirely hollow. One could hardly describe artist Valie Export’s Genital Panic, wherein she sat, wielding a gun, naked in crotchless jeans, as anything but overpowering with such threatening female sexuality. In the same way perhaps we can see the Fetish trend as utilizing this frightening sexual element?
But I can’t. I do believe celebrating female sexual liberation can only be a good thing and maybe in some sense the fetish trend does this, when we consider the sexual oppression women have been subjected to for millennia. But surely on most levels this just plays into the virgin /whore dichotomy. Part of sexual liberation is choice and not having to occupy any kind of role, debunking the myths of “frigid” and “slut”.
So in this way my mind is made up: the fetish trend is awful. But then I remember the Slutwalks. The Slutwalks of Summer 2011 have been one of the most widespread demonstrations for gender equality of the past decade and I whole heartedly agree with everything they stand for. The abhorrent injustices of rape law is something that requires far more space than this to address, but a woman’s right to wear whatever she wants without any sort of blame or attribution of guilt is surely something that requires no debate. But I’m not sure where I stand on the name. I understand the idea of reclaiming the word, making it into something that is not derogatory – but I just don’t like it. The word slut says that female sexuality is dirty. But then again I cannot argue and do not believe that the Slutwalks were a negative movement. I was proud of each of those women wearing whatever the hell they wanted.
As always, female sexual liberation is a cause in progress– and on some level the fetish trend registers that. Personally, I don’t like it and I don’t think it’s because I’m a prude. It still feels debasing to me. Only when men have the equivalent gauze-crotched trousers might I reconsider my opinion. But at the end of the day it’s a personal choice. These clothes are not forced upon anyone and I’m glad people can wear whatever they like. And when I put these clothes in context with the Slutwalks of this summer, I am sort of pleased about the fetish trend. Sort of.
Hannah Cockayne
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