Fashion week is about to get very political again...
New York Fashion Week is almost upon us, with designers from Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs to Victoria Beckham and Ralph Lauren gearing up to showcase their SS18 collections in NYC in just one week's time.
Like always we can expect a flock of high fashion A-listers gracing the front rows and frequenting star-studded Manhattan after parties, but this year promises to be different, with the fashion industry taking a political stand in 2017.
Due to the current political situation (ahem Donald Trump) and the sense of unrest that it has provoked, from the Travel Ban to attacks on women's reproductive rights, high profile figures and organisations have been using publicised events to take a stand.
The SAG awards turned political in February, as celebrities called out the immigration ban by drawing 'Let Them In' on themselves and using their speeches to address the President, while Katy Perry performed her hit song Chained To The Rhythm at The Brit Awards, bringing out skeletons dressed as Theresa May and Donald Trump and shaking her head angrily at the camera.
Now politics is coming to New York fashion week for the second time this year. In February New York fashion week turned political as the industry sported pink pins to stand in solidarity with Planned Parenthood.
This season the Council of Fashion Designers of America will be distributing blue ribbons for people to wear to stand in solidarity with the American Civil Liberties Union, an organisation working to safeguard human rights.
'We want to be on the front line, not the sidelines, to boldly fight to protect our precious rights and freedoms, which has taken on a renewed urgency after the heart-wrenching events of Charlottesville,' announced the President and CEO of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Steven Kolb. 'Our goal is to actively support concrete work that will move our country meaningfully forward. The ACLU is doing that critical work.'
