Fashion and Feminism: Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaïa, who gained popularity in the 1980s and has been dubbed "The King of Cling," says (as quoted in Fashion Now), "A woman's not going to buy a little skirt for a lot of money if it's not for seduction. What else are clothes made for?"


Oh, dear. It's this attitude that makes it difficult for people to imagine feminism and fashion going hand in hand. Or at least, this attitude contributes to the problem of imagining a feminist who loves fashion. Like myself. If clothing is only for seduction, how indeed can a feminist justify loving fashion? It again becomes all about the male gaze, doesn't it? All about the other and none about self-actualization or creativity.

Alaïa also talks about how he designs for all women, not for any particular, for Woman. Although he is clearly inspired by the female body and by women, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, there is much in the way Alaïa talks about women that is problematic. He is essentialist, idealizing, lumping all women together as seductresses and muses. Feminist this is not.

Anyone have a pedestal?



On the other hand, Suzy Menkes defends Alaïa in her article "10 Years Ago: Alaïa Launched His Revolution: Landmark for King of Curves" for The International Herald Tribune. She writes, "So while many women have rejected the body-hugging look as only for the young with beautiful bodies, the unsung fashion hero who started it all aims to dress every woman so that her body looks a cut above the rest." She implies that even though his body-conscious, curve-hugging designs of the early '80s "seemed a deliberate challenge - throwing down a sexist gauntlet in a feminist world," Alaïa's work is truly liberating for women.

But this liberation seems to consist solely of giving women "beautiful bodies," bodies that look "a cut above the rest." This may make individual women feel better, more beautiful, and perhaps eventually more confident, but it does so by saying to these women, "You must be beautiful." Not only that, it says, "You must be beautiful in this particular way. You must be thin, toned, and appear young."

According to even Menkes' defense, then, there is no celebration of a variety of body types, no celebration of individual quirks, no celebration of the changes that age brings. There is no sense of community, no sense of connection with others, no sense of aesthetic other than the controlled and modified body itself as a source of beauty. As Menkes also points out, "he still has as clients or customers women who look to him to iron out or reshape the little bulges." Instead, there is uniformity and competition between women whose bodies must be reshaped and bettered.

Generally, I defend fashion. I see no reason why fashion and feminism cannot go hand in hand. But that can only work if both fashion and feminism are a bit more flexible than they have been and have been perceived as being, if they prize joy, beauty (not just of the perfect body, but of colors, shapes, textures, and the individual woman wearing the clothing), and experimentation.

So really, it's not the body-conscious clothing itself I am objecting to. Much of his work is indeed beautiful. It is the ideology that seems to accompany his clothing to which I object. When that ideology is challenged, when the experience of the wearer trumps the ideas of the creator, that is also a beautiful thing.


Susie Bubble (over at Style Bubble writes the following:

Anything tight and figure hugging used to freak me out and completely, but having recently experienced the feeling of vintage Alaia (trying things on in One of Kind is too much fun...), which I thought would constrict my body but actually liberated it. I felt exposed but not uncomfortably so. It was a different kind of uncomplicated look, and defintiely something that I could see myself (and others) delving into.

This entry illustrates the way in which the clothing itself is open to different women's experiences and reveals the very reason I am loathe to object to the clothing itself (in this instance and in others). She is able to challenge her own limitations, stretch her boundaries, through wearing the Alaïa dress. That is wonderful.