Fashion is Elitist

Proposing the motion  -

Hadley Freeman, Caryn Franklin, Beth Dincuff

Opposing the motion-

Sir David Tang, Grace Woodward, Hilary Alexander

SPEECH

Hello Grace im a size 10, ive appeared in adverts and fashion photos. Im wearing McQueen that cost £40 from the sample sale that was advertised on Daily Candy, My Daily and other newsletters to thousands of people, much to my dismay.  Im here tonight to talk  about my specialist subject, me.
I was born on London’s Tottenham Court Road, even to this day it doesn’t take a wild stretch of imagination  to know that this has always been a pretty ropey area, so no silver spoon was awaiting for me there, though i did get an electric one but it came without batteries. My parents lived in Holloway and Camden (very definitely not ABC1 areas in the 70’s) until separating,  so my mother and i  firstly went to live in my Grandmother,  an irish immigrant, in her council house. As i was getting older, we were temporarily housed in a mobile home in a park with other mobile homes. If we were American we would call them Trailer Parks and the people who live there are Trailer Park Trash. After settling in, it was flooded and vandalized by the private residents, forcing us out, finally settling again in a tiny top floor flat in Borehamwood, which for those of you that haven’t had the misfortune i can only describe it as the boil of the arse of England.
My family clubbed together to send me to a pretty second rate, if not third rate, private school which was so bad it  closed down part way through my education there. i had a lot of trauma at home, it was all a little bit like Shameless or Eastenders on a good day. Being blessed with one of those creative brains i  found it pretty hard to learn at school. i got into London College of Fashion by a late entry wowing them somehow with something in a last min interview, only to spend the next three years in bars like The Groucho Club and as my step father would say ‘wasting’ my student loan in Browns Focus on South Molton Street. So lets review what Elite actually means, yes im going to quote the Oxford (dare i say that word here) English Dictionary a group of people considered to be superior in a particular society or organization:   that by extension the definition has connotations of exclusivity and that barriers are in place preventing the non elite from entering.   And so here tonight you  have a trailer park girl with a questionable education standing here, not having blagged the guest list, having been invited by arguably one of the worlds most elite academy’s  – to debate weather or not Fashion is Elite.  Can you see where im going with this??

The Fashion Industry is many things : nepotistic, unregulated, unfair, bitchy, deeply shallow and sometimes highly questionable but there are more ‘rags to riches’ stories many other industries.  There are really hundreds of examples that i could pick out from Gabrielle Chanel to Kate Moss, though   there are three people who exemplify that fashion, rather than being ellitist, is deeply inclusive and open.  The first is Alexander McQueen, the notoriously foul mouthed son of an East London cab driver who’s house recently made The Royal Wedding dress, the second croydon born Sir Philip Green foul mouthed CEO of Arcadia, one of the UKS largest fashion groups,  and the third, actually this one is a collective The Wag, foul or not, that is not for me to say.

Much to my chagrin, as ive been quite vociferous about her being considered a designer at all, im going to talk about first Victoria Beckham. I really didnt think i would ever be extolling praises over Posh Spice in an academic sense or otherwise but she is living, walking practicing proof that there is no such thing as elitism in fashion. With clever strategy and sheer will she went from being daughter of not particularly connected  Essex family, The Arch  Wag, tabloid fodder, queen of hair extentions, to the darling of the fashion industry, appearing in Marc Jacobs campaigns, showing her eponymous label on schedule in New York Fashion week and as i speak has her own window space in Harvey Nichols probably one of the most prestigious department stores of the world. Vogue, one of the first ever fashion magazines, deemed the fashion Bible,  takes great care in showcasing luxury at all cost, has put Victoria Beckham on its cover, not once but six times worldwide, also gracing those hallowed pages has been WAG Coleen Rooney , and Glamour model Amy Childs former TOWIE star.  Now ive nothing against Essex of football, though they are not generally known for being related to the upper classes.

My most esteemed opponent Caryn Franklin wrote on twitter about this very debate ‘you could argue this either way’ – although i am arging this only one way it would be foolish not to recognise that some elements of the fashion industry are extremely elitist especially in the past.  Some representations of fashion within popular culture do tend focus upon this, highly visible but actually very small part of what is a hugely heterogeneous industry
Alexander McQueen was a rebel, a provocateur, a genius. To be those things he needed something to rebel against and in 2009 armed with the internet he chose to stick the knife in at the very heart of fashion – Paris fashion week.  McQueen was the first person to live stream his catwalk show for the whole world to see, thus negating any need for editorial opinion, someone else’s taste filter wasnt needed to tell what happened behind those invite only doors. Many designers have followed suit, even having 15 year old bloggers on the front row, some would say, leaving all fashion editors aka the fashion elite worried for their future supply of Manolo’s. This to me is when elitism ended.

So how could these people make it not only succeed but to break boundaries, and make fortunes and if the cream were not allowed to rise, even though their accents could curdle it? Because fashion thrives on talent and new ideas and thankfully its overlooked by the old boys club as its waaaaay to frivolous. In my own experience of being on and making the country’s most watched TV show, the X Factor, every week the national newspapers were commenting on the styling, even the most ubiquitous of programs Lorriane Kelly were all in frenzy about it,  this was my idea of living hell i tell you but its a sure sign that fashion is everywhere and is for everyone.

To conclude this argument isnt even last season, it like soooo 10 years ago (which FYI in fashion terms is not due for a revival for another 10 years, making this argument the equivalent of hmmm 20 cm high Buffalo boots made famous by The Spice Girls). Some people might say fashion is elite, but me and The Spice Girls and hopefully  you will now say otherwise.

Read my dairy of the event for for Instyle http://blogs.instyle.co.uk/celebrity_features_desk/grace-woodward-debates-fashion-at-cambridge-union-society/

More press:

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9057383/Is-Fashion-Elitist-The-Cambridge-Union-says-so.html

have been filming in the wierd situation of S/S in A/W as is the faster than nature nature of the fashion industry. Spots and Polka dots are spreading from the catwalks like measles, so to allay my anixety ridden cold sweat nights “Am i on trend????” im just reminding myself. All hail to the “KIng of Vintage” – Vogue,  William Banks Blainey who procured this 70′s Lanvin piece.

Hat by Inga Ruby

Rewarded for DJing for Michael Lewis and The Convenience Store i’ve been getting all girlie in  his Rosalina design to the tune of lots of street compliments. Now also hankering the arrival of Louis Vuitton’s A/W 10 shooze. Listening to Bowie of course.

]]> http://www.gracewoodward.com/fashion/2010/bow-me-that-girlie-feeling/feed/ 0 http://www.gracewoodward.com/fashion/2010/image-of-the-day-fashion-trompe-loeil/ http://www.gracewoodward.com/fashion/2010/image-of-the-day-fashion-trompe-loeil/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:03:21 +0000 Grace Woodward http://www.gracewoodward.com/?p=100

Meadham Kirchhoff for Topshop

Im beaten, i thought i had all the answers, but i don’t. Well that’s a bit dramatic, i have a fashion dilemma. Beyond all rational judgment i bought an £800 Preen top from Net-A-Porter, it resembled a vest, but it was more like a wisp of vapour that adorned my torso. It was breathtaking on, though i think i was still high off the adrenaline of actually spending that much money.  Through the haze it dawned on me  im sure it wouldnt have been just my sharp inhale of air i would be experiencing if i  wore it in public. Exposed nipples: A sure fire way to make every woman hate you and every man to  not talk to you properly. False advertising and not just from NAP.

Not necessarily in this order.

On a shoot for Style in Berlin, the photographer Jason McGlade told me he was launching a round magazine. As the zeitgeist would have it, this was pre Florence days, i’d been looking again at Kate Bush, particularly the video for Breathing had a grip on me – the idea of the plastic womb – i’d seen huge plastic balls with people in at Bestival and quite some time before Julie Atlas Muz performing in/with a huge bubble and had lodged into my visual storage file of things to try.

So a year or so later Freestyle magazine starts flying into stores in it’s befrizbee’ed madness and Jason hits me up to do the womb shoot. I knew i needed a woman to shoot it to get the womb thing in a modern way and Julia Kennedy had just sent me some of her new work which was quite something. Julia was also six months pregnant.

i kept the colour palette to nude tones and red which im glad to also see Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy did for A/W 2010 .

Instincts, maternal or otherwise

Another late night in glamourland.