Fashion has always been the preferred tool for generations of rebellious changemakers to get their point across. For instance, the battle for equality and recognizing the LGBTQ+ community is long-standing. Many talks and debates have been conducted and forgotten. However, throughout queer history, fashion, and music, both stuck to a clear perspective: individuality and equality for all. Designers like Gianni Versace, Alexander McQueen, Jean Cocteau, and Christian Dior have always been on the cutting edge of culture and expression with their nod to androgyny and display of queer lifestyle.
Whether to fight against the AIDS crisis or to commemorate the Stonewall riots, fashion and music have served as vessels to be seen and heard. And it is not just the fashion gods who speak up. Even models, like Ayesha Tan-Jones, use fashion as a stage to shine the spotlight on things that matter. A 26-year-old nonbinary model, artist, and musician who uses “they”/”them” pronouns, Ayesha Tan-Jones recently staged a runway protest against Gucci, slamming the brand’s “offensive” use of straitjackets “alluding to mental patients” in its spring/summer 2020 collection during Milan Fashion Week. They held up their hands on the runway to display a message that read: ‘Mental health is not fashion’.
Likewise, Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior put climate change on the center stage, even as world leaders look at the matter with appalling indifference. The Dior spring ’20 show featured a cast of Greta Thunberg clones and a wooded set of 164 trees — all destined to be replanted in and around the French capital.
Watching the kingpins of the fashion industry acting with such fervency only underlines the necessity of teaching ethics and sustainability in fashion technology courses. This is why we decided to dedicate our September issue to the Fashion & Designing Institutes in India. We have featured some of the best colleges in India that are at the forefront of providing cutting edge fashion and designing education.
We also had the fortune of covering the inspiring story of the NexConnect team. Ensuring quality education to children from the often-forgotten sections of the society, NexConnect is on the campaign of making “Right to Education” a reality.
We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together, because who doesn’t like getting a little glitter on their hands?
Cheers!