We Don’t Care That You Wear Zara
Someone once told me that most Patriots games are boring. Well, explain the Benito Bowl then?!
As a former frequenter of basement jams et soca fetes, I was entertained. Tbh, put me anywhere with a bunch of Caribbean flags waving et I’ll get emotional. Kes should do the next one.
It was one of those cultural moments that brought us together before ringing the fight bell. Because not too long before the flags exited the field with the human tall grass, the styling notes dropped.
It was revealed there was a sneak on the Super Bowl stage (well two if you count you-know-who). Twirling amongst the dancers in YOMAS, next to Lady Gaga’s custom LUAR, et riding above his collaboration with Adidas, the BADBO 1.0, was Zara.
Obviously there were words—et still are—about this. I’ve yet to see debates about the look itself. Because the current back et forth isn’t even about the look, aesthetically. It’s about Zara’s rights & freedoms under the all inclusive, not-problematic-at-all, “democratization of fashion.”
Not to be the too woke fashion friend, but the sartorial propaganda is working. The liability laundering is working. The man is winning, yet again!
The “democratization of fashion” is like season 3 Georgina on Gossip Girl. She’s turned a new leaf at NYU, making friends, in a healthy casual relationship with Dan. Wholetime she's been blackmailing, scheming, et lying as usual.
It’s a lie. A farce as faux as the fur at Stella McCartney. There can’t be a “fashion for all” if the fashion in question comes at extreme costs to someone else’s livelihood.
It’s not to be misunderstood that none of us are better than the other when it comes to fast consumerism. We’ve all benefitted from it. But “fashion for all” cannot be the grounds we ride at dawn for when fashion isn’t a human right to begin with.
We have the right to be clothed in functional garments that protect our health et don’t hinder us from participating in society.
Et, that’s really about where it ends.
Everything after that, believe it or not, is a luxury. Even if it cost $20, even if you got it at the thrift store (the better poster child for the democratization of fashion).
A LBD from Zara. Celebrities, they’re just like us!
Which is why Bad Bunny wearing Zara isn’t the issue. It’s how quickly the language around “access” gets framed as virtue because it asks nothing of the people selling, only of the people buying.
There isn’t a single one of us without consumerism sin or a rock to throw, but diffused guilt is not responsibility.
For the love of God, please stand up.
