Older women coming into fashion? Charlotte women say: About time!

Age is – as they say in fashion – having a moment.
In trendspeak, that means age is hot right now. And by hot, we mean Joni Mitchell, 71, starring in ads for Yves Saint Laurent; 80-year-old Joan Didion for Céline; and 65-year-old Twiggy for L’Oreal, in January alone. They follow Helen Mirren, Lauren Hutton and Charlotte Rampling in recent major campaigns, and the lesser-known-yet-legendarily-stylish Iris Apfel modeling both Alexis Bittar’s jewelry and Kate Spade’s apparel for Spring 2015.
Let's see: That's seven high-profile gigs for women with an average age of 74.
Clearly, something in fashion is cracking open – at least a bit, at least for this moment, even if it’s more for shock value than for actual sales, as some have opined. (That line of thinking goes: Does Didion’s wearing them make you want to buy those Celine sunglasses? Or is her status as a literary icon just conveying a new degree of cool on the French luxury brand?)

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Yet the over-55s bought nearly a third of U.S. clothing and 40 percent of “personal care products and services” in 2013, according to global consulting firm A.T. Kearney (see sidebar). Could advertisers ignore that kind of power?
Whatever it is, Charlotte’s Berhan Nebioglu thinks it arrives not a millisecond too soon.
“It’s about time we are recognized! That we do exist! And we are not invisible!” says Nebioglu, a fashion fixture in Charlotte for a quarter-century or so. She taught modeling at the city’s first Barbizon modeling outpost, circa 1990. She coordinated more than one fashion show (“musical fashion shows,” she specifies) before becoming a longtime uptown-jewelry-shop owner turned rebel with a cause.
“Every time you open a magazine, what do you see? Twenty-year-olds, 18-year-olds trying to sell you all these beauty products ... I am 67 years old. Make sure you put my age in there!
“So many women are so afraid of expressing their age. Why should we hide our age? This is the best that I have ever been in my life. But the beauty and fashion industries are making us feel guilty because we are aging.”
Now, “they’re realizing there is a huge market out there for people like me, people over 55, that they could actually sell their products to.” Seeing Apfel in the Spade ad “really made me feel emotional. I had tears in my eyes.”
Nebioglu wanted to show off some local elegance in the 55+ age range, and Charlotte photographer Jim McGuire liked the idea of portraits that were ad-worthy and Avedon-esque. Here, you see what they put together for The Observer.
The near-absence of older women in fashion spreads and advertising has been “all about fear of aging,” says Nebioglu, and it only recently occurred to her that “we are creating this fear also for the younger generation.” She has a 45-year-old daughter.
“My daughter said, ‘We don’t have people to look up to (in fashion media) who are older and looking good ... We see older women who aren’t fashionable because (they’re told) ‘You’re older now, you shouldn’t be fashionable!’ Is this what we have to look forward to?’
“To me she is so young. But (in magazines), she’s comparing herself to 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, and she’s ‘old’ now.”
Adding older women to the fashion mix consistently could take many forms, of course – and opinions on what’s needed range wide. Just add an older women to younger models in fashion spreads, say some. No, get more designers actually designing for the older body, say others.
Either way, says Nebioglu, the fashion and beauty industries choosing to make older women visible makes all the difference.
“That says: It’s OK to be older. It’s OK to have wrinkles. It’s OK.
"It’s OK!”
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Is the fashion industry finally ready to embrace ‘real’ women on the catwalk?

A relatively unknown model called Winnie Harlow made waves when she walked down the Desigual catwalk during New York Fashion Week.
What makes her achievement exciting is she suffers from vitiligo, a chronic skin condition that causes loss of pigment in the skin.
The 20-year-old Canadian model, whose real name is Chantelle Brown-Young, created her modelling name as an alter ego to summon confidence when she was diagnosed with the pigment disorder when she was four years old.
After her NYFW appearance the former America’s Next Top Model contestant said: “I feel like the industry is very much opening up, widening their eyes. That’s what people are looking for…something they can relate to, a real person.”
And in the same week 30-year-old Jamie Brewer became the first model with Down’s syndrome to appear on the catwalk.

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This achievement is made slightly less ground breaking by the fact the catwalk wasn’t part of the main New York Fashion Week schedule but it’s amazing none the less.
It’s also indicative of a change in current thinking and a growing demand for more representative models in the industry.
Jamie Brewer was taking part in the Role Models Not Runway Models show held at Lightbox in New York. Jamie is an active spokesperson having served on the ARC Government Affairs Committee for Texas to improve legal rights and recognition for disabled people. The inspirational model also appeared in American Horror Story.
After her runway appearance she said: “It’s a true inspiration being a role model for any young women to [encourage them] in being who they are and showing who they are."
The move towards better representation hasn’t happened overnight, in fact it’s been a slow, reluctant crawl.
It was 5 years ago that Debenhams made the decision to use a disabled model in their advertising campaign.
The high street store used Shannon Murray, a model confined to a wheelchair, in a photo shoot line-up to promote their Ben de Lisi fashion range.
The 32 year old said at the time, “Another small step towards inclusion and representation. I hope the images challenge a few misconceptions about disability; it's been a long time coming.”
Earlier that year Valentina Guerro, a 10-month-old girl from Miami, Florida, appeared on the cover of a U.S catalogue for Spanish designer Dolores Corte's latest swimwear collection.
The toddler, who has Down's syndrome, not only fronted the designer's campaign but also made her runway debut at Miami Swim Fashion Week where she was carried onto the stage at the end of the fashion show.
The designer said in a statement: “People with Down's syndrome are just as beautiful and deserve the same opportunities. I'm thrilled to have Valentina modelling for us.”
However, inspirational stories like Winnie, Jamie and Shannon are still too few and far between. But things are slowly changing.
In February last year New York Fashion Week marked the first time a model 'walked' the runway in a wheelchair.
Dr. Danielle Sheypuk, 35, made her debut in the Carrie Hammer show after Ms Hammer made the decision to cast role models not runway models.
The big question of course is whether these examples are just pure tokenism or are they a real step forward for disability rights?
We clearly still have a long way to go in terms of diversity in the fashion industry but slow progress is being made.
The crux of the problem is that advertising, whether we like it or not, isn't just about selling a product. In essence it goes much deeper than that; it's about selling a lifestyle and this lifestyle is based on a fabricated ideal of perfection.
Let’s be brutally honest, and as the mother of a boy with a disability I think I am qualified to say this, disability simply isn't a 'lifestyle' that many would want to buy. In most people's minds, it's the lifestyle they'd actually pay not to have.
With this in mind it's not that surprising that advertisers generally choose to avoid the issue altogether. And of course it's not just disability that falls outside of the advertisers' idea of perfection.
Size has long been a topic of controversy on the runway. In the world of high fashion a size 00 is considered the 'norm' and larger models have rarely appeared on the international runways.
Canadian knitwear designer Mark Fast sent 'plus size' models down the runway at London Fashion week in 2010, to prove that clinging designs look good on every body shape.
However, when he used three plus size models the season before his decision had caused a behind-the-scenes row that ended with his stylist walking out.
But hope is on the horizon. Last September New York designer Zana Bayne used models of all shapes and sizes for her catwalk debut.
The leather accessories designer's sexy harnesses have been worn by everyone from Lady Gaga to Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow.
"I loved the idea of just representing women: someone with a flat chest, someone with a full bust, curves, no curves," says Bayne. "I just wanted to showcase a variety of gorgeous girls.
"Even with my finale model, who is a mother, it was important to showcase that archetype as well. It's about celebrating all women."
So what will it take for things to keep changing? Models of Diversity founder Angel Sinclair has been campaigning since 2008 for more diversity in the models we see in every day life.
She's calling on the fashion, beauty and marketing industries to recognise the beauty in people of all races, ages, sizes, shapes and abilities.
Passionate, driven and inspirational, Angel explains, “The project I have been working on solidly for the past 2 years is disability.
"No major fashion brand wants to be the first to say you know what, we are going to feature disabled models, permanently as the face of our brand.
"In the build up to LFW we’ve been emailing 10 brands every week, every email is the same 'talk to us, tell us, why aren't you representing us….?' MP Katie Green has been fantastic, and Caroline Rush from British Fashion Council has been really helpful and given us some great advice.”
And she had a success with NYFW, where Jack Eyers' appearance in the Antonio Urzu show made him the first male amputee to take to the Big Apple catwalk - showing it isn't just with women models that the industry is getting real.
From Bournemouth, Jack was born with a rare from of Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency which prevented his right leg from growing properly.
''It all feels so surreal," he said. "It’s pretty overwhelming, I just want to show that having a disability doesn’t need to hold you back.
"I always said if I was going to do something like this, I want to do it big. I want people to see me, and to realise that there needs to be more disabled models walking the runway."
But he wants to be more than a token gesture.
“I think some brands see us as ticking a box,” he says. “Which is all right to start with, because it means that we’re making headway.
"My dream, though, is to be featured not as some one-off sob story, but because people see me as a good model.”
Angel has been working towards London Fashion Week and hopes that designers will use disabled models on the runway. "It's a slow process, but we will get there. Attitudes are changing."
With LFW kicking off, let's just see.
And if they need any more convincing, they might like to see Jack in action from a recent Levi's inspired advert for charity Scope...
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Why Fashion Magazines Matter

Walk by any magazine rack and undoubtedly, you'll walk by heralded fashion tomes like Vogue, Lucky, W, and more: thick bound copies often belittled for their heavy advertising and high photo-to-writing ratio. Inside, you’ll find waifish, pouting models wearing ridiculously expensive, deliciously bizarre costumes—not clothes—with headlines that seem pithy and shallow: trend forecasts for the season, celebrities posing in designer gowns, tips on how to best flatter the body.
It seems an anonymous writer a decade after the turn of the century felt the same. In a 1911 Atlantic article, she (and this is an assumption on my part, but I will assume the writer is a she) wonders at the oft-pensive look found on many a fashion model's face, the one that seems to look blankly into the distance.
Observe, in this choice publication, the crucial moment when he—in the pergola studied from directions in The Ladies' Own for manufacturing Italian gardens—stands, with elbows correctly bent, a perfect facsimile of 'Gentleman's Afternoon Wear,' on page 2 of the fashion circular. She, in Empire style without folds, is gazing at him with that facial expressionlessness that means a perfect fit. It is most effective, after its kind; but should a man, at this great crisis in life, be thinking quite so hard about the lines of his shoulders? Should she, at this time, which The Ladies' Own would pronounce the supreme moment of a woman's life, be quite so careful to tilt her head in just the way that shows off the under side of her hat?

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The dearth in this scene of any emotion, any intellectuality, any sense of the human complexities is obvious, and the author takes note of this as she gleefully tears the fashion magazine of her era apart.
In many ways, not much has changed in fashion magazines. There is, after reading the 1911 story, a strange sense of continuity: Fashion magazines continue to feature models in awkward positions boasting uproarious fashions.
But fashion magazines have evolved. Today, they are just as likely to tackle serious events and the social issues of the day as much as showcase the next feathered, ruffled creation. Fashion has become increasingly accessible since the time that this piece was written—it has broadened its vision beyond society girls drowning in money and become a genre that celebrates "street style," "normcore," and being "basic." Fast fashion, while controversial for its practice of reproducing carbon copies of designer duds at a fraction of the cost by using essentially indentured labor in developing countries, has arguably democratized fashion in making the pricey threads featured in the pages of the fashion magazine the anonymous author ridiculed over a century ago affordable.
Fashion magazines have also had to compete against the Internet just like every other print magazine. But they’ve extended their power beyond the starry-eyed clothing connossieur—they're a veritable source for news (seeRefinery29's deft commentary on events embedded within its fashion blog design), feminism (Joanna Coles of Seventeen is altering the magazine's focus on sex into a powerful statement on the sexual issues at the forefront of Millennials), and politics (a subject that has been tiptoed around in this realm but has been a welcome, however limited, aspect of recent issues from the industry leaders).
Fashion magazines still aren't perfect. Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystiquecriticized the one-dimensional woman editors marketed to, a housewife whose pretty mind couldn't be bothered with the politics of the time. Their overt focus on stick-thin models has continued, drawing attention to the eating disorder epidemic across high schools in America, and questionable photography has brought on criticism for embodying almost-child pornography version of "high art." Portrayals of powerful women as damsels, and the focus on their diets and beauty routines, have produced criticism as well. It's a classic problem, says our anonymous author of yore:
Jesting aside, there seems to me in all this work, a fatal tendency away from close study of individual characteristics toward types, and rather foolish types, like the wax figures of show windows. Is this our nearest approach to the presentation of ideal beauty?
But these controversies are notable for introducing very serious, real conversations about the world we live in. Fashion magazines have highlighted problems with society that have often been ignored by the mainstream media, whether it be working conditions for the mothers around the world or pay discrepancies between females and their male counterparts. In many ways, they've become driving forces in the 21st-century feminism movement. While our author of the past despises the helplessness of women back then as portrayed by her magazine subscription, fashion magazines today have moved forward in (attempting to) make sure the women they are showcasing are not simply clothes hangers for couture but people of character, grit, and ambition.
We live in the golden age of this medium. Fashion has become a modern political force, and it exerts itself through the images and text in the pages of today's fashion magazine.
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Designer Carrie Hammer Talks Role Models In Fashion, Plus How Our Standard Of Beauty Is Slowly Changing For The Better

The New York Fashion Week runways have finally begun to advocate the type of beautiful diversity that exists on the streets of the real world, and one designer in particular has championed the change. Carrie Hammer debuted her premiere runway collection just shy of a year ago, with the guiding principle “Role models, not runway models” underscoring her initiative to empower the modern, multitasking woman. Instead of simply selecting models based on their aesthetic appeal, Hammer has instead pulled influential businesswomen, CEO’s, vice presidents, philanthropists, and scientists onto the runway to give women a mind to emulate as well as a look.
Hammer also upholds the notion that beauty doesn’t possess a singular definition, but rather emanates from confident women in many unique forms. Just last season, bacterial meningitis survivor Karen Crespo debuted customized prosthetic limbs on Carrie Hammer’s runway to a booming round of cheers from Hammer’s audience. This year,Jamie Brewer of American Horror Story and Bustle’s very own Marie Southard Ospina are just two of the inspiring women who will walk in the show. Hammer’s Fall 2015 runway is the most impassioned yet, and she’s only just getting started. After securing a much-deserved spot on the coveted 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Hammer dove right back into designing her newest collection. Before debuting her latest collection as part of New York Fashion Week, Hammer took a few minutes to discuss her favorite designers, what the runway has in store for audiences this season, and how her own role models have ignited her creative spark. Here are five lessons to learn from the courageous and visionary designer.

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Hammer may be surrounded by new role models each day, but the designer credits her mother, artist Jean Wells, with bestowing the artistic seed that grew into Hammer’s design business. Hammer recalls Wells cultivating her daughter’s imagination by incorporating creative pursuits into her life from an early age, whether with afternoons spent exploring clay works or artfully knit scarves. “She was an incredible role model to me,” Hammer says, perhaps the role model who catalyzed the designer’s own dedication to inspiring others.
Hammer’s role model lineup is the result of careful deliberation, but what the group shares is an intense intellectual drive to match their sartorial sense. Hammer’s initial list of role model nominees is whittled down from over 500 nominees to a select few who she feels best encapsulate her company’s principles. Fall 2015’s runway boasts a double take-inducing list of accomplished women, from Senior Vice President of McCann Worldgroup Nicole V. Cramer to Senior Director of Corporate Engagement at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Lori Peterzell. Other standouts in the lineup include Director of Public Affairs & Diplomatic Relations at The Coca-Cola Company Missy Owens and Director of Program at Clinton Global Initiative Alexandra Amouyel. Of the role models using the greater world stage as their catwalk, Tory Burch is one of Hammer’s personal luminaries.
Though Hammer’s classic, fitted sheath dresses and tailored blazers are beautifully rendered additions to a work wardrobe, the designer is quick to remind me that the collection is about more than simply aesthetics. Hammer was once told that she should dress for the success she strove for, and her line is formulated to give a clients the confidence they need to conquer the business world, make a difference in the community, or any number of other tasks they complete during the average day. As fashion is an integral facet of Hammer’s message to women, I simply had to ask about Hammer’s own creative influences. Without skipping a beat, Hammer declared, “Diane von Furstenberg is my fashion role model. She was a female executive in the ’70s, and sold over a million dresses in a matter of two years. I look up to women who are not afraid to lead.” Indeed, Hammer’s entire design philosophy is devoted to influential women who have built mighty empires from scratch. Another of Hammer’s personal influencers is Tory Burch, who Hammer admires for her work to finance female entrepreneurs through her eponymous Tory Burch Foundation as much as for Burch’s enormously successful fashion and lifestyle empire. As she paused to think about the qualities her role models shared aside from their singular willpower to succeed, Hammer cited a less conspicuous trait: humbleness. “I think that’s how they got to where they are. They treat everyone as an equal, and they’re incredible at what they do,” Hammer stated. And indeed, the designer’s role models are as renowned for their altruism and communitarian inclinations as they are for the creative or numerical output.After including Ms. Wheelchair New York Danielle Sheypuk on her February 2014 runway, Hammer received an influx of emails from women who felt empowered by the manner in which Hammer demonstrated beauty’s great diversity. In addition to her response from Karen Crespo, Hammer vividly recalls receiving an email fromChanging The Face Of Beauty founder Katie Driscoll. As the mother of a child diagnosed with Down Syndrome, Driscoll wished for her daughter and other adolescents with disabilities to be represented in mainstream media. Driscoll created Changing The Face Of Beauty, a website with the goal of including children with disabilities in advertisements with the intention that her daughter Grace would grow into a confident woman not defined by her Down Syndrome. Driscoll found Hammer’s Role Models initiative a perfect parallel to the message she wished to give her daughter. “She said, ‘Thank you so much for including Danielle in your show because she provides a role model for Grace,’” Hammer explained. Stories like Driscoll’s impel Hammer to work harder and continue to give the next generation of female executives real women to emulate.
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Lebanese Fashion School Scouts Talent in Refugee Camps, Orphanages

It's in the refugee camps and orphanages of Lebanon that Creative Space Beirut, a fashion school, looks for emerging talent for its three-year program taught by top Lebanese and international designers.
Sarah Hermez, 28, founder and director of Creative Space, chooses 10 underprivileged students from different backgrounds to join her school in the art district of east Beirut.
They hope to join the success story of Lebanon as the fashion center of the Middle East and home to designers making dresses worn by Hollywood stars on the red carpet.
U.S. singer Jennifer Lopez wore a silver dress by Zuhair Murad at the Golden Globes last month, attention-grabbing with a thigh-high slit. British actor Kate Beckinsale wore an eye-catching grey Elie Saab dress to the same event.

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At Creative Space, students sketch ideas in books on large white tables, surrounded by tailor's dummies and spools of different colored thread.
Hermez co-founded the school with her New York-based former professor Caroline Simonelli and says it is for "people who are very talented, very passionate about design, but would never have had an opportunity to pursue design."
When she opened the school in 2011, she traveled around Lebanon, a small Mediterranean country, searching for talent in refugee camps, orphanages, poor neighborhoods and women's centers. Students then applied for a place. New students come in when slots open up.
Some students focus on evening wear but many make the school's ready-to-wear line, including trousers and kimonos.
They sell for between $100 and $200 a piece, with high-end fabrics donated by designers that include Donna Karan.
All profits go back into the school, which also receives donations and partners with shops to raise funds.
Creative Space has only two graduates so far. One, a Palestinian refugee from Ain el-Helweh camp in southern Lebanon, is now doing work for a design house in Lebanon and teaching her skills to others for a charity.
Ahmad Amer, a 21-year-old from south Lebanon, started the program two months ago. He painted from an early age and wanted to study fashion but could not afford the fees.
"It would have stayed as a hobby and I would have worked on it on a personal level only," he said, showing his sketch book filled with drawings of women in veils.
"These three years will make a big difference in my life, I have a place to work in and I have material to use," he said.
Hermez, who graduated from the Parsons School of Fashion in New York, said that starting out with as little as her students used to be the norm in the fashion industry, and that design became a vocation for the elite only in the last decade.
"If you look back into any famous designer, most of them have come from backgrounds where they had to work. They had to work and build themselves up," she said.
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Fashion Designer Julia Shapiro Discusses The Queer Dynamics Of Her Line J SHAP

This is the fifth installment in a miniseries that elevates the work of up-and-coming queer individuals working in the fashion world. Check back at HuffPost Gay Voices regularly to learn more about some of the designers of tomorrow and the way their work in fashion intersects with their queer identity.
Julia Shapiro is a young fashion designer and recent graduate of Cornell University living and working in New York. Though Shapiro doesn't identify as queer, her brand, J SHAP, informs a queer understanding of radical self-expression and self-determinism that translates through her designs and the overarching ideology. The greenest designer featured in this miniseries, Shapiro orchestrated a guerrilla-style presentation of her line at last year's New York City fashion week, drawing attention to her garments when she crashed the outside of Mara Hoffman's show. Embodying a philosophy that encourages individuals to "reject the business of fashion and give yourself over to the art of fashion," Shapiro is currently planning another guerilla-style "takeover" of fashion week in September of this year. Read the interview below to learn more.

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The Huffington Post: What has your journey as a fashion designer entailed?
Julia Shapiro: I have always wanted to be a fashion designer for as long as I can remember. It all started with a Manolo Blahnik sketch book I got when I was young and morphed into what it is today. I attended Cornell University’s Fiber Science and Apparel Design program but quickly realized I was unhappy with the lack of design focus. I felt like my loudness and craziness was being stifled and watered down by the atmosphere and feedback from my colleagues and teachers. Nobody really understood it. So, I left for my junior year and did an urban semester program in NYC in the fall, attending London College of Fashion abroad in the spring. This period of turmoil -- as well as what I turned it into -- was really when I found the confidence and boldness I have now. I came back with a whole new attitude about my work, finally understanding how to make the program I was in work for me. I think that always questioning, going against the grain, and not putting up with bullshit are what has got me to where I am today.
What is the nature of the work you produce? Why do you use a lot of recycled materials?
At the base of all my work is a commentary on consumption and the themes that go along with that: i.e. globalization, mass marketing/manipulation, obsession, anything that is “so American.” I like to apply these themes in an ironic way -- they are at the center of my aesthetic but they are also what I am fighting against. For example, a picture of a McDonald's sign next to an American flag would be something I would love -- an ironic glorification of something so American that it is beautiful but, in reality, actually sucks about our culture. The concept of "so bad it's good" is a solid way to describe it.
This is why I use a lot of recycled materials; fabric stores are very limiting, especially when it comes to these themes. Using recycled materials takes away all of the boundaries and allows me to literally create the garments out of the themes I am working with. For example, using beanie babies or hamburger wrappers to construct my garments. Even the work I do with recycled t-shirts is intentional because of the logos. Working this way not only frees me from limitations but it also encourages creativity because certain items will inspire me to make them into something I wouldn’t think to sketch.
While you don't identify as queer yourself, I would argue that your work speaks to a queer aesthetic. What is the underlying philosophy driving your brand?
The driving philosophy of my brand is self expression, baby! I look at fashion as escapism and identity exploration in the same way that Leigh Bowery and the club kids did. I try to push people a bit outside of their boundaries in every aspect of my life, encourage people to be more open, fun and self expressive. Through my clothes I do this by making things that people can’t say no to. I find a lot of “weird” or “out there” clothes are made with either no sense of aesthetic eye or taste level -- or else they are radically expensive. With my work I make it so that people relate to it, want it, look good and feel confident in it. If I can be the designer who prompts someone to buy one piece a bit outside their comfort zone that they love, that is almost like the gateway drug to being self-expressive and loud in other arenas of their lives.Why do you think your work has such a driving appeal to the queer community?
This aspect of self expression has always been aligned with the queer community. Those in the queer community are almost like the ambassadors of self-expression in my mind. There needs to be identity exploration in order to come to the conclusion that you are queer, and a big part of that exploration is through dress. Once you become comfortable and open with your sexual orientation (which is a hard thing to do) you become fearless. Fearless people have no problem with expressing themselves, and that's why I gravitate towards drag queens, gender benders, taste makers, etc. for my brand -- and also why I appeal to them. It doesn’t matter at all how someone identifies themselves to me, it’s all about the attitude.
What did your "takeover" of Fashion Week last year entail?
I was always told, like everyone else was, how New York City is this amazing creative hub where you need to be if you are in the fashion or art world. After living in NYC a handful of times for internships and art programs, I felt uneasy. Why wasn’t I feeling the way everyone else seemed to feel? Where was this magic I was told about? I had also lived in LA one summer to intern with Jeremy Scott and London for a semester abroad. These places seemed way more current in terms of self expression and fashion but, realistically, all arrows still pointed to NYC. For some reason I was unhappy with this.
It was one tireless night right after graduation that I was grappling with this dilemma and realized it wasn’t me, it was that NYC, in regards to the fashion scene, is not current. The mythos of New York Fashion, and the keywords traditionally associated with it -- groundbreaking, unique, creative, self-expressive -- are defunct. What remains is a handful of watered-down design houses relying on a dated reputation using spread sheets, trend forecasting and other statistics to pump out collections that will sell to the masses with generic (and unearned) praise best described as “conservative chic.” Many of these “designers” don’t show passion, they don’t create worlds, they aren’t doing anything new. I want fashion to come back to being an art, treated more democratically, with individuals having unique opinions rather than being dictated to by the market. I want to revive the spirit of what New York once was -- you should be able to tell a New Yorker from a tourist just by looking at them. This is why I chose to do the takeover, to point out the shortcomings of New York fashion week, to stick it to the man, to say fuck the system.
What do you feel like was accomplished by the takeover? What are you trying to articulate about the fashion industry and the future of fashion?
The takeover proved that people are ready and receptive to this type of change in the fashion scene. Photographers literally ran out of the tents at fashion week during Mara Hoffman’s show to get pictures of us. Everyone loved it and was really supportive. Some people even joined in. Honestly, this type of fashion makes people smile, whether they are loving it or appalled. Fashion is getting way too serious and stale. Yeah, putting on a top designer outfit may make you feel accomplished because of the label stitched on the inside, but the clothing I am making makes you feel happy, take on a different persona, attitude, or air. My brand, as well as this type of self expression, is just that on a larger scale. I want the future of fashion to be that people stop looking at clothes as a necessity but to look at it as personal adornment once again. For it to be more democratic in terms of designers who get praise, for people to have their own list of favorite designers, have opinions that are devoid of that of the industry, and to own pieces that will make them feel proud to wear. Reject the business of fashion and give yourself over to the art of fashion.
What is next for J SHAP?
The response to my takeover has prompted another event for fashion week this coming September that will remain to be seen. I have also been working on building inventory so that people will be able to start purchasing J SHAP! Recently I have launched a long-term series called "Dress Up With J SHAP" in which I invite friends into my studio to explore and create looks with my clothes, a sort of free-form photo shoot that is very organic to come up with looks, inspiration, and get great shots through the lenses of the person I'm working with, the environment, and the supplies/garments I have. I have also come to the conclusion that fashion as art should be seasonless, collections should come out as ideas are finished just as art series come out. This means that collections can come out as frequently as lookbooks or on the other hand can be given more time and attention if an idea calls for it. This also means that the silhouettes in the collections do not have to adhere to a set of rules set by a season but can be reflected solely by the inspiration and what the collection calls for. So you can look forward to a lot of new collections coming from J SHAP.
Most recently I was invited to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the largest trade show in the world which pioneers cutting edge and upcoming technologies, to gather the free giveaways and in less than 24 hours create a wearable technology look with the "swag" I gathered around the convention. This was my first exploration into wearable tech, integrating LED technology into the bodice controlled by an easy to use app, and hopefully I will be able to integrate more of this in the future.
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