Fashion stumbles with controversial designs

On Friday, Victoria’s Secret supermodel Karolina Kurkova stepped out for a walk around her New York City neighborhood.

Wearing a short shift, comfy boots and a leather bomber, Kurkova looked like the epitome of downtown chic. Still, a supermodel walking around should not be newsworthy.

What the supermodel is wearing, however, is a different story.

On this particular day, Kurkova’s shift was covered in a print of small machine guns. In light of a failed attempt to pass comprehensive gun reform last week, this dress turned from an interesting frock to one with a whole lot of meaning.

Despite the fact that the original concept behind the design was unrelated to the U.S. legislation, the model caught a lot of flak for her attire from those who called her choice of outfit insensitive to the failed bill.

Israeli-born fashion designer Nili Lotan, who designed the dress, told the New York Daily News that the frock was conceived back in 2006 and that “it was against war and not anything to do with the personal use of guns.”

This incident might have gotten blown out of proportion, but it begs the question: When does fashion take it too far?

It’s not the first time that an outfit has offended someone. Fashion is supposed to break rules, but sometimes the collective majority can agree that some things just go a little too far.

In November, lingerie behemoth Victoria’s Secret apologized for putting an incredibly elaborate, Native American-themed headdress on leggy supermodel Karlie Kloss in their annual fashion show. Animal-print bra and underwear? Check. Belly decorations? Check. Ceremonial headdress that denotes honor to a subset of Native Americans? Let’s not do that.

Some people might think that it’s harmless fun. After all, who doesn’t dress up as Pocahontas on Halloween every once in a while?

But as Michelle Spotted Elk told the Associated Press last fall, “When you see a Lakota chief wearing a full headdress, you know he is a very honourable man. He was a leader. He did a lot of honorable things for his people. It also has religious significance. With them, there’s not a division between spirituality and their leadership.”

Boom. Statements such as that certainly have the power to stop someone in their tracks. Victoria’s Secret was just trying to have a little fun, where’s the harm in that? Unfortunately, no matter how pretty the headdress might look on a scantily clad model, mocking a religion and culture in such a manner is no joke.

Native Americans have had their land ripped away from them. They have suffered as the United States government took their land and sold it. And for all this suffering, they get to witness bad representations of ceremonial garb being modeled with Bruno Mars singing in the background.

Plus, how offended do you think Muslims would get if they saw a lingerie model walking down the runway with a hijab? Or what if she were wearing a nun’s habit?

Yet Victoria’s Secret isn’t the only store to cause some alarm. Somewhere between a Monopoly-like game called “Ghettopoly” in which you get “yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack, collect $50” and a T-shirt with what looks eerily similar to a Nazi-mandated Star of David on it, hipster brand Urban Outfitters has become the spot for easily offensive shopping.

Sure, many minority groups get up in arms over seemingly nothing. As an African-American, I sometimes roll my eyes when even the simplest of things is called racist and demeaning.

However, when someone is profiting over a game in which players pretend like they live in the ghetto — a reality for so many people — that’s when it’s appropriate to get angry. When a store is profiting from a T-shirt that alludes to the Holocaust, that’s when it’s appropriate to get angry.

Last year, designer Jeremy Scott tried to profit from a pair of sneakers he had designed for sports giant Adidas. They looked like a simple pair of sneakers at first, yet on the top were yellow shackles to strap yourself in.

In a column for The Huffington Post, Rev. Jesse Jackson said “The attempt to commercialize and make popular more than 200 years of human degradation, where blacks were considered three-fifths human by our Constitution, is offensive, appalling and insensitive. Removing the chains from our ankles and placing them on our shoes is no progress.”

Fashion is many things. Fashion is fun. Fashion is crazy. Fashion is individual. But both designers and consumers have a duty to make sure that what they create is a positive reflection of the society we want to be. No one really wants to be insensitive, but if you casually wake up in the morning and throw on a gun dress while the nation reels in horror from a violent attack, you’re playing with fire.

By promoting and selling certain items, we’re helping to continue this idea that shackles are funny, that the Star of David looks so fresh in yellow, that headdresses are fun and sexy and that gun dresses are just so super cute.

Clothes are no reason to lose common courtesy. Clothes are no reason to forget about the troubles that humans face every single day.

By constantly keeping stores and designers in check, we’re helping to make sure that prejudice and insensitivity disappear a tiny bit faster.

Kurkova probably didn’t realize her mistake until it was too late (let’s blame it on the fact that she’s not from the United States) but hopefully she now understands the meaning behind her outfit.

Fashion isn’t all about fun and games. And sometimes, we all just need to grow up a bit.

Sheridan Watson is a junior majoring in Critical Studies. Her column “A Stitch In Time” runs Tuesdays.