Despite the pandemic going on in the whole world, presenting fashion shows has not deterred fashion houses. One of the houses is the French and young brand, Jacquemus. The fashion show, Spring 2021, was held in a wheat field and streamed live. As viewers, you quickly notice the diversity among the models. There are both female and male models, and models with origins of African American, Asian and White. The problem is just the image Jacquemus shared on their Instagram after the successful fashion show. A Twitter profile, named DECOUTURIZE (1), shared a revealing detail between the fashion show and the picture that was shared on Instagram after the show. The picture shows the team behind the show, which consists completely of White team workers. You do not see the same diversity behind the scenes as you do at the fashion runway. It raises the question that Jacquemus makes use of diversity solely as performative? Is that a trick? And can you call it tokenism? The last term, tokenism, means that ''actions that are the result of pretending to give advantage to those groups in society who are often treated unfairly, to give the appearance of fairness ''(2). By that is meant, Jacquemus may show diversity as something symbolic or performative, to show their "solidity" with minority groups, without really being so. It is not to exhibit Jacquemus. It is to be eye-opening that tokenism is a problem in the fashion industry which some fashion brands, unfortunately, make use. It should be banned. Or at least improved, so brands actual incorporate diversity into their fashion houses.
(Picture taken from Twitter- @DECOUTURIZE)
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