When Emma Watson launched the HeForShe campaign last September at the United Nations, she inspired men and women around the world to own their feminist identity. She and her many famous supporters have been making moves for gender equality ever since, but there is still a lot of work to be done. In a new video for Vogue UK, the actress and activist addresses the issue of inequality in the fashion industry by asking four prominent designers to share their thoughts on the matter.
Emma's first question for Stella McCartney, Jonathan Saunders, Erdem Moralioglu and Bella Freud gets right to the point. "Are you a feminist?" she asks, and the answer is a resounding "yes" on all parts. The designers pinpoint such pressing issues as the gender pay gap, insufficient maternity and paternity leave, and the unfair assumption that women aren't as committed to their work as men.
Saunders makes a compelling argument about complacency in fashion: "It's very easy to slip into the mindset where you feel like you're working in a very liberal environment where men and women are treated equally, where that doesn't seem to be any gender preferential treatment," he says. "It's easy to neglect it being an issue."
We were beginning to doubt how well fashion, a mostly white-dominated and affluent industry that celebrates thinness, could speak to a more universal notion of gender injustice, until McCartney worked to broaden the discussion. "We need to give a better message to women of all ages, all sizes and all nationalities," she says. "We need to allow women to feel comfortable in who they are." Saunders reiterates her point, stressing that "we need to be really careful with the images we produce," making them "something that empowers women, instead of making them look weaker and more fragile." Thankfully, there has already been a lot of progress in this area, with disabled, plus-sized, trans and nonbinary models coming to the forefront of the fashion stage and challenging the norms of beauty.
We can only hope that opening up this discussion will spark more and more movements for gender equality, be it in fashion or otherwise. Watch the video below to learn more about HeForShe!
