An Antidote to the Met Gala Discourse
Surely we all yearn for more than luxury branding and lukewarm takes?
The problem with the discourse surrounding the Met Gala and the Devil Wears Prada sequel, is that with each breath we expel to add our (admittedly lukewarm) takes to the already abundant mass of content, we are invariably adding oxygen to the fire that fuels the algorithmic furnace of the capitalist hellscape we’re all trapped inside. Not to be dramatic.
In addition, the videos that have been flooding my feed this week tend to retread the same ground with synonyms and buzzwords that feel like the same take–this is bad, billionaires are tacky, etc.—repackaged to make us feel like we are taking part in something that resembles positive change. The reality, however, is that these institutions ultimately don’t care what we are saying so long as we are talking about the event and creating content for the Meta Gods.
This is not to say that Instagram cannot be used as a tool for engaging critically with these systems but only when utilized and weaponized strategically. While putting together this essay, which has gone through many iterations over the course of this week as I process and parse through my personal feelings in conjunction with everyone else’s on the internet, I came across content creator Justina Snow who identified one of my major criticisms. As a fashion content creator, she announced that she would not be reviewing any of the outfits at the Met Gala this year because the very act of doing so normalizes the corporate money present at these events which creates a sort of complacency and complicitness around the violence that the money from these corporate ventures are being used to fund. This is not a fashion moment; this is a failure of the arts community to remember its roots.
Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez, are supposedly satirized characters of Condé Nast-backed DWP 2, and yet they are chairs and financial sponsors of the Met gala which is being used as a promotional opp and tie in for the film. Further indication that this fire is an already blazing inferno that does not need our help.
The gun is aimed, the trigger’s pulled, and at the last minute the bullet bends and misses its mark because that’s what it was always designed to do.
Hollywood has started to weaponize storytelling as a kind of virtue signalling exercise; the Bezos characters of our world don’t come out on top in the world of the story and that catharsis satiates and placates and subdues us enough so we don’t get too mad when their real-world counterparts very much get to escape the joke unscathed and in many instances completely missing the point–not realizing they are the joke, mistaking satire for celebration and criticism for cultural relevance. The gun is aimed, the trigger’s pulled, and at the last minute the bullet bends and misses its mark because that’s what it was always designed to do.
Content creator Lauren of @readinginkyoto came across my feed this week and said it best: the ultra rich are trading economic capital for cultural capital, buying their way into something that they typically struggle to access. When you buy your way into a super hard to get piece of fashion, your wealth converts to “vision.” These events legitimize them as arbiters of taste and culture and make the artists complicit. The contradiction of modern Hollywood is that it satirizes billionaires with one hand, only to turn around and mythologize them with the very same aesthetic language and cultural machinery it used to critique them.
And therein lies the problem with these Devil Wears Prada-esque stories: they are comfort food–toothless gestures towards truth dressed up in, admittedly, better fashion than the first film. But that’s because the first film, I have come to learn, was completely without the support of the industry it was criticizing, and for the better, in my view. When we operate on the fringes of dominant culture we ultimately are more creative, incisive and uncensored than when we are operating in the middle of it.
The first film’s stylist, Patricia Field, was forced to build a representative world mirroring the Condé Nast fashion scene without access to any of its resources, and that necessitated lean and deliberated nuanced styling which inadvertently built an original and distinct voice for the film which is why it has endured over the past 20 years. It had a point of view and it stood in opposition to the dominant view of the time. We watched a character complete an arc in which she turned down the opportunity that 1,000 girls would kill for. She walked away.
It gave the impression that there was empowerment and success to be found in rejecting the system and in the long gap between when Andy threw her phone in the fountain and now, we have perhaps come to learn that that success and empowerment is edged with something insidious and heartbreaking. It takes a strong moral character and relentless commitment to one’s values to maintain that success and when we return to the story we are faced with the truth that perhaps, people don’t want to be better or different. We are all those 1,000 girls and we will continue to kill each other for the chance to be exploited in style.
OR
We could pick a different path, one in which things are a little rougher around the edges, yes, but one where community, mutual aid and true creativity and originality thrive outside the confines of wealth and privilege. Find inspiration in the messy and imperfect, the unpolished and inexpensive. There is storytelling to be had that isn’t intended as a kind of false self-aggrandizing narrative that feels liberating while surreptitiously slipping on the cuffs (but hey, at least they’re Tiffany).
And let me be clear, disentangling ourselves from the machine does not mean dismissing the people working within it. The artists, assistants, designers, writers, technicians and cultural workers contributing to these spectacles are not the architects of the system so much as the creative labour that keeps it alive. Often the contributions of these artists and workers are flattened into the red carpet, but the irony (and hopeful other side of this argument) is that the creative initiatives attempting to push against these confines are also being led by those very same people.
We are all trying to carve out something sincere and meaningful from within a structure designed to commodify both art and identity. And yes, there is irony here, in this essay, too. Because in criticizing the endless churn of lukewarm takes on the Met Gala and sequel announcements, I am still participating in the same attention economy. I am still feeding the machine another paragraph to metabolize into content. But the antidote cannot simply be silence or disengagement disguised as superiority, there needs to be replacement or redirection.
Over the last several months, I have been grappling with how to find inspiration outside of the system. How can I reframe my thought processes? How can I shift my consciousness and attention toward ways of creating and living that cannot be so easily flattened, absorbed or connected to consumption?
So, if you will allow me, I would like to sidestep my self-constructed irony by offering up some of the inspiration I have found while on this quest:
Cyberdecks
I have found myself on the self-proclaimed matriarchal tech side of Instagram recently and while I have little interest in coding and meta-data, I am fascinated by this new wave of resistance codified as a girlhood craft. Women and girls are building small personal tech devices within traditionally “girly” objects to reclaim their sense of autonomy, creativity and customization outside of the gaze of male-dominated “big tech.” It also sidesteps this industry’s move toward mass standardization and planned obsolescence by putting the power back in the hands of the people who can, and should, be able to fix their own belongings. The emphasis on using parts you already have, upcycling, and buying second hand is also antithetical to the planned obsolescence model that demands we treat perfectly functional things as outdated the moment the next iPhone drops. This movement is the perfect balance between analogue and technology as entertainment without someone behind the scenes manipulating you into endless scrolling.
Upcycling
Speaking of upcycling…the fashion industry would have us believe that upcycled clothing has no place in the mainstream. As a model, it is presented as unscalable and unsustainable (assuming your goal is profit and market share). Brands that repurpose textile waste and worn out or discarded clothing are often editorial footnotes or the subject of overly wistful puff pieces that limply wave at what fashion could be. This is perhaps a somewhat intentional misrepresentation of what fashion and ingenuity are capable of. Havre Studio for instance has gained mainstream success for repurposing mens suits into womenswear, but they are far from the only brand capable of, or indeed practicing, this kind of approach.
An estimated 30-40% of global clothing production is never sold and ends up destroyed or in landfills and that isn’t taking into account the amount of clothing and textile waste that also ends up in landfills or is shipped overseas to countries like Ghana where millions of garments are dumped and left to pollute the community. But grassroots locally-led organizations like The Revival demonstrate that upcycling has more in common with true fashion than branding. Yayra Agbofah’s NGO integrates education, awareness, art, and job creation while repurposing and reimaging discarded clothing. Supporting global initiatives, seeking out companies and brands that are reducing waste and not creating it is a great way to redirect the online shopping and trend chasing urge into something just as fulfilling and inspiring, if not more so.
Mutual Aid and Skills-based Trading
There are some spectacular artists globally that are building community and resisting capitalism through skills trading. This model primarily applies to tattoo and visual artists who are offering their services in exchange for language lessons, photography, knitwear or other crafts, clothing alteration and sewing lessons, meals, etc. This kind of mutual aid encourages connection and self-sufficiency outside of corporate systems and makes me incredibly hopeful for the future. Engaging with these artists online has also helped me to retrain my algorithm to prioritize more of this kind of content which makes my time spent online feel more grounded in my values.
If this is something that interests you, here are a few of the creatives who are operating this way to get you started:
Learning to Understand Culture Not Labels
Did you know that florals were not part of Indigenous beadwork pre-contact? Did you know that the scarf trend on the red carpet is a dupattā? The recent wave of trends that have co-opted South East Asian culture without any reference or credit to its origins has prompted me to start prioritizing understanding culture over labels and branding. Fashion is art but it is also language that has been employed throughout time to communicate heritage, class, subculture and resistance. The most truly interesting and fashionable people know very little about quiet luxury or tags but are well-versed in history, geography, politics and art. Looking at culture and reference and not wealth indicators has helped me to maintain my love of fashion and resparked an interest that feels counter to the narrative being pushed by the forces that built the Met Gala.
Everyday Muses
I don’t want to linger on this too much because I’m working on a series that explores the idea more fully, but I cannot recommend enough grounding yourself in the people you find most inspiring in your actual everyday life, whatever that looks like for you.
And Most Importantly…Get Offline
There is no substitute for human connection, community, activity, and creation. Make something, build something, create in real life with no intention of making money from it or posting online (again, ironic, I know) but trust me on this. The true antidote is to spend as much time as possible living your life, not converting a fabricated version of someone else’s. Especially not billionaires.