Sorry, I don't like Ghetto Couture

                                   


The fashion industry has always been rife with accusations of discrimination. There is a palpable paucity of minority ethnic models on the catwalks of Milan, New York and Paris with the exception of a few household names -Naomi Campbell, Chanel Iman and Jourdan Dunn. This is not likely to change anytime soon, even though Vogue Italia’s Black Issue championed the cause a couple of years ago and was the fastest selling issue of all time. The experts explain the bias as a pure mathematical marketing decision: we are not the target demographic, we do not have significant purchasing power, so there is no demand. Tell this to Next and asos.com who use models of every hue and who posted significant increases in turnover. In spite of this snub, I still fall in lust with the Mulberry Alexa, I salivate and drool over the latest Chanel croc, and I hallucinate over the prospect touching (not even owning) a real-life Birkin: it would be like touching Michael Jackson. Seriously. When did this small town girl who grew up with kids who sometimes placed their schoolbooks into plastic bags pick up this strange luxury goods obsession? I do not know. I am ashamed of it because I really should know better: purchasing these products does nothing for my community, my self esteem and my development. I am working on it.


This is why I was very proud to see black owned businesses getting into the mid market of luxury goods. Finally some brothers with common sense! I hoped that we could learn a few lessons from the Asian and Jewish demographic, where there is a very strong sense of cohesion and community: finally brands I can support and wear with pride knowing that it was for us, by us and that funds would be channelled back into areas that need the investment. Needless to say- for me this has not been the case- I have been consistently disappointed and let down by the persistent and relentless pushing of what I call Ghetto Couture.

Ghetto Couture is what is termed “street fashion” the credo of put-some-bling-on-it-and-black-people-will-buy-it. The designs are loud, brash and bashy. The end result is often tacky. Take Nelly’s Applebottoms- the Apples on the back of the jeans are encrusted with plastic crystals and 90% of the jeans on the website have some sort of gold diamantes pasted onto the back. The rest of the collection consists of various items in coloured cheetah prints and tops and vests in bright orange, pink and blue. Kimora Simmons’ Baby Phat is no better- perfectly good fitted dresses are ruined by a huge golden cat on the back. Gold and bling is the primary theme. The colours are a bit less loud, but only marginally so. Rocawear ‘s handbags thrive on a similar concept- there are often very cute little pieces- but there must be some element of gold or silver logo inspired hardware. In fact, Beyonce’s House of Dereon collection (not the diffusion line Dereon, which is virtually identical in its love of fabulosity) is the only fashion label that I found that offered clothing that had some semblance of being tasteful and elegant.

I don’t like Ghetto Couture because it operates on the assumption that the target black market is obsessed with bling, gold and loud colours, almost perhaps in homage to Big Daddy Kane and the gold infestation of 1990s hip hop. This might be true for some people but it is certainly not true of a lot of people I know. I like my share of fabulous and I love bling - I have my own theories on it- it was our way to claim and stake visibility in a world which often renders us invisible but I hate Ghetto Couture because the collection is always “street”: what about clothing for our professional black women who wish to be stylish at work in a corporate environment? Where are the worksuits and leather handbags and briefcases? What about a cruise collection, a holiday collection? We go on holiday too. Why are we limiting ourselves to clothing that are only suitable for the street or for the club? These are negative stereotypes that we perpetuate ourselves. Are we saying that we don’t deserve tasteful, elegant things?

It is telling that many of the espousers of Ghetto Couture do not wear their very own brands. I see Victoria Beckham marketing her own dresses on every single occasion. I have never seen Kimora wear Baby Phat on occasions other than jogging or walking to the store. Beyonce only wore Dereon once on the red carpet and it was an epic fail. I have also only seen her once or twice with products from her husband’s label, Rocawear. So question is, if your very own products are not good enough or fresh enough for you, why should they be good enough for me?

There is only one other thing that irks me more and that is the new corollary of Ghetto Couture- the championing of brands that we are not paid to market, and with which we have no natural affinity or connection. In the days when Hova was Hova it was Cristal- until the Foederer brand said that it did not wish to be associated with rap artists and that there were dissipating the value of the brand. Then there was Timbaland: Timbs were the go-to shoe brand for people of colour until they started limiting the stock in Harlem and other ethnically diverse areas –they were just a little bit too popular.

Now it is the turn of Clarks- Vybz Kartel has dedicated a Holy Trinity of songs to Clarks- a brand that has no luxury kudos here in the UK-. He admonishes “Clean out ya closet. Deposit de Clarks... every crep get a fling... straight wallabees... deposit the thing”. Clarks, probably not wanting the Jamaican attention and connotation because of all the Chris Coke inspired violence, is on the record as saying that it has not noticed a significant uptake in the sale of its shoes as a result. Unless the versions of the Clarks sold in the Caribbean are all knock –offs (which they very well might be as I have not seen Clarks in those colours in my local Lewisham depot), this is absolute bollocks: it is the latest item that is on all request lists out here in the Diaspora for the past two years. The song tells it all “whey yuh get that new style Daddy? The Queen of England haffe love off Yardie”.

It would be amazing to me, if just as Kartel developed the concept of the Daggering condom, the effort could be placed into designing, manufacturing and promoting his own brand of footwear instead of singing about an old- stuck up label. As long as it is not encrusted with crystals and scattered with random flecks of bling- I would probably buy it.