I don’t delude myself into thinking the fashion industry possesses moral clarity, much less a moral compass. This is, after all, an industry built on the concepts of reinvention and seasonality, and thus it must exist in a constant state of trying to one-up itself in the fight for relevancy. When it comes to the runway, this is often done through stunts. Thierry Mugler presented his Fall/Winter ‘95-96 collection featuring actresses Tippi Hedren, Julie Newmar and Patty Hearst. Tom Ford’s Spring ‘11 womenswear comeback featured Beyoncé, Julianne Moore and Lauren Hutton. These days, sensationalism has become very much the norm in an ever-competitive landscape within the attention economy, which the fashion industry exists within (a telling sign of the industry’s subordination). Take Milan Fashion Week from just under two weeks ago, where Vivian Wilson, the estranged daughter of El*n M*sk, made her runway debut walking for Gucci.
It makes a lot of sense… until it doesn’t.
This past season gave us runway debuts from Clavicular, Bryan Johnson and Marilyn Manson. And while they are not equals in their crimes against humanity, their collective embrace signals industry desperation, clasping at hollow forms of cultural relevance that dignify the maxim that any press is good press. It’s both troubling and predictable to watch an industry birthed out of progression fall back to such a state of frenzied reactivity. And for what, in the end? A few clickbait-y headlines? A 24-hour cycle of outrage?
It began last month when Braden Peters, aka Clavicular (who comedian Adam Friedland referred to as “a drug addict who read a lot on Erowid”), made his runway debut for Elena Velez. To explain Calvicular’s rise within the manosphere would be, in a sense, to dignify it. So I’ll leave that to you to Google. To get a sense of who this man is for the uninitiated, however: In January, the 20-year-old partied in Miami with white nationalist commentator Nick Fuentes and influencer Andrew Tate (who’s nearly twice his age and who continues to face charges of rape and human trafficking). The three were seen chanting along to Kanye West’s track “Heil Hitler” in widely circulated videos, because of course they were. Weeks later, Clavicular was a bonafide New York Fashion Week star.
Then came Milan.
Longevity tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson made his runway debut just last week, walking for Matières Fécales, a brand thrust into the mainstream by Lady Gaga, who wore the brand to the Grammy Awards in January.
The show was titled “The One Percent,” and drew on a study by an NGO called Oxfam which confirmed that the world’s richest 1% (which Johnson is not among) hold almost half of all global wealth. “Power concerns us all. Whether it is corrupted by those who govern us or absent when we need it most, we all have a relationship with it, and that is precisely what this collection is about,” the show notes read. Vogue called the show “Paris Fashion Week’s most controversial show.” Johnson, just a year ago, was the subject of an expansive New York Times piece titled: “How Bryan Johnson, Who Wants to Live Forever, Sought Control via Confidentiality Agreements.” Though his casting was seen to some as an indictment of sorts, his willful participation and the media circus around it only exemplified that many are more intrigued by him than they are skeptical.
And then came Paris.
Not to be outdone in the race to discover fashion week’s biggest scumbag was the Enfants Riches Déprimés (which translates to “depressed rich kids”) runway show on Sunday. The brand, founded by Henri Alexander, is built on provocation. They entered the fashion scene in the mid 2010s with a spikey jacket worn on the likes of Kim Kardashian and Demi Lovato.
When metal band Black Anvil posted a photo of Kardashian’s jacket, tagging the clothing brand and calling them “wack,” Alexander reacted tersely.
“Ur such a pussy. Look how much I control your emotions that u made a whole post about my work. Little Bitch ass Punk police. I will r*pe and exploit and pillage whatever I want and I will sell it for thousands while u sit here and just feed me more attention. Know your place u stupid fuck.”
So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a decade later, Alexander’s back at his familiar caustic antics by casting Marilyn Manson just weeks after an LA judge reopened a sexual assault case against the singer.
The lawsuit, filed in May 2021 by a former assistant to Manson, had been dismissed in December because it exceeded the statute of limitations but was reinstated under a new law enabling old sexual assault cases to be heard in court. The former assistant alleges that the rocker sexually assaulted her when she worked for him from 2010 to 2011. She also claims that Manson boasted about r*ping women and even showed her a video in which he was abusing a minor girl. And here he was, opening the show for Enfants Riches Déprimés, in a move that fashion critic Mario Abad called “tacky and desperate.”
To be honest, I don’t think enough people are paying attention to fashion these days for this to receive the kind of blowback that would result in any sort of contrition — sincere or otherwise. I certainly don’t think they’ll affect any of the brands’ bottom lines, which is ultimately the goal with any stunt of this nature. Still, I think it tells the story of an industry that has largely (but not entirely) ceded its cultural currency for that of fleeting moments of zeitgeist adjacency.
I hope this trend will soon pass.