Mental Health Is Not Fashion
As Gucci headed into their 2020 summer fashion show at Milan fashion week, they intended for another flawless runway walk, followed by loud applause from a crowd of high ranked fashion icons of the world. Their new looks were to be the talk of the town, comments of astonishment, of the upscale fashion Gucci had produced this year. But this was not Gucci Model, Ayesha Tan-Jones, intent. Rather, their idea of the outcome of the fashion show was much different.
Gucci’s 2020 collection had over 80 different fashion looks, ranging from avant-garde to everyday wear, but one portion of the show was neither of those two, rather it was “not fashion” at all. This particular section consisted of outfits that were modeled after the look of a straight jacket and clothing of a mental patient. In regards to mental patients, straight jackets refer to a point in time when the medical field did not understand how real mental illness is. Patients with various mental illnesses were beaten and abused by the supposed “caregivers”. The models strutted down the runway on a conveyer belt, wearing a white prison-looking outfit and sandals, just like a scene out of a movie.
Ayesha Tan-Jones, a British, non-binary (who’s preferred pronoun is they/them), Gucci model, remarked that they believed the “outfits alluding to mental patients while being rolled out on a conveyor belt as if a piece of factory meat … [were] vulgar, unimaginative and offensive to the millions of people around the world affected by these issues." As some of their colleagues were dropping out of the show to show their disapproval of Gucci’s offensive line, Aysha decided to protest a different way. Ayesha would rather highlight the issue, then let it be. As they walked down the catwalk, straight-jacket outfit and all, they surprised the whole crowd, including their fellow models. Ayesha flashed their hands to the crowd, of which read, “Mental Health is Not fashion.” As Ayisha strutted down the runway, they made a statement larger than life, leaving the whole crowd in shock, their fellow colleagues proud, the director’s angry, and the press with a better story than “Milan's Fashion Week Highs and Lows.”
This is not the first time Gucci has produced and modeled offensive and insensitive clothing, passing the line of cultural appreciation into cultural appropriation. In May of 2019, Gucci released a line with turquoise turbans, causing an eruption of anger in the fashion industry, as people are being killed for taking part in their culture by wearing turbans, yet Gucci is profiting from the same clothing item. Back in 2018, Gucci released a line in stores of masks made with balaclava knit that looked far too similar to “blackface”. After the incident Gucci apologized for their wrong-doings saying “We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected, and at the forefront of every decision we make." Although the most recent wrongdoing was a case of disregarding the sensitive issue of mental illness as opposed to the past issues being racial and cultural, both show that Gucci has struggled with finding the fine line between new and original fashion while still being aware of their audience and the delicate topics at hand.
By Ruby Kaufman