Popular fashion designer Tom Ford says the woke moral panic over “appropriation” is limiting fashion — that “cancel culture inhibits design.”
“Cancel culture inhibits design because rather than feeling free, the tendency is to start locked into a set of rules,” Ford said in an interview with The Guardian.
“Everything is now considered appropriation. We used to be able to celebrate other cultures. Now you can’t do that,” he added.
Ford cited an “obsession with political correctness” as a drawback for this generation of fashion designers. He also blamed social media for making style and beauty “increasingly cartoonish,” adding that “everything” is now “exaggerated.”
“The future of fashion is increasingly cartoonish,” Ford said. “Instagram has broken down the rules. People dress up to take pictures of themselves to post online, everything is exaggerated — especially the eyebrows.”
Ford added that he recently watched Fake Famous — an HBO documentary about social media influencers — and that he found the revelation that Instagram users were using toilet seats to give the illusion of being on a plane “completely hysterical.”
In today’s era of cancel culture and so-called “cultural appropriation,” fashion designers, musicians, comedians, actors, and many more are finding it increasingly difficulty to navigate the field of their careers.
In September, pop star Rihanna’s annual Savage x Fenty lingerie show faced backlash after featuring non-black women with braids in their hair. Last year, Rihanna was also accused of “cultural appropriation” over a song — Coucou Chloe’s “Doom” — used during the performance, which contained sampled Islamic hadith phrases.
Many celebrities have also recently aired their grievances regarding cancel culture.
In August, reality television star Kelly Osbourne proclaimed, “Fuck cancel culture” in the wake of her mother Sharon Osbourne’s departure from the hit CBS show The Talk over a controversial discussion on race, Meghan Markle, and Piers Morgan.
Over the summer, A-list Hollywood star Kevin Hart hammered cancel culture, telling the woke mob to “Shut the fuck up.”
Comedian and actor David Spade has also warned that wokeness is killing comedy. “It’s very tricky,” he said of being a comedian in the age of cancel culture. “Now you say the one wrong move and you’re canceled. It’s a very tough world out there.”
In May, comedian Dave Chappelle declared that “cancel culture shit bothers me,” and called out “fake woketivists” who try to censor their opposition. Recently, Chappelle has been under attack by left-wing activists over his latest Netflix special, The Closer, because he made jokes about transgenders.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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