This is the second in a series by Bree Bonzon-Liu about the relationship between fashion and activism - where they connect, clash and change the world. She will chat to fashion industry professionals, activists, organisers and scholars about the complex relationship between clothing and change-making.
Clothing and accessories have long been part of the way we advocate for our causes in Aotearoa. In 1981, the Springbok tour prompted protesters to wear T-shirts and badges reading ‘STOP THE TOUR!’ or HART (Halt All Racist Tours) in a stand against apartheid.
New Zealanders wore similar items to advocate for a nuclear-free country, and Aotearoa remains a nuclear-free zone to this day. Big or small, it’s clear that fashion has played a part in the history of our social movements. Why is that?
I asked Aniket Chawla, the leading organiser for the 2018 March for Our Lives rallies across Aotearoa. Chawla is no stranger to demonstrations: to name just a few, he also attended the Black Lives Matter rallies, Climate Strikes and joined the land occupation at Ihumātao.
“Fashion is a really good extension of self,” says Chawla. “And ultimately protests are a form of self-expression, right? Expressing what you believe in and what you stand for.”
Expression was at the core of Chawla’s March for Our Lives rallies. New Zealanders gathered in solidarity with the young activists in the United States who were pushing for gun reform after surviving a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Taking place a year before the Christchurch mosque attacks that turned our attention inward, the March for Our Lives rallies in 2018 were not focused on changing New Zealand policy, and Chawla had no illusions about the rallies impacting US policy either. So what did they achieve?
“With protests you can have tangible change and laws and policies. But you can also change people’s mindsets and inspire people to show up and speak up about what they believe in, which is a big part of protesting as well. And it’s probably the part that a lot of people forget about,” says Chawla.
Changing people’s mindsets and showing solidarity is also important to Thursdays in Black, an advocacy movement working to eliminate sexual violence. The movement, which began overseas, now has branches in tertiary institutions all over Aotearoa. It’s exactly what it sounds like — on Thursdays, they wear black.
Participating shows that you believe and support survivors, and that you’re here to “call out institutional bullshit”, says Thursdays in Black’s 2022 national coordinator Vivien Whyte.
Why has it spread so far? Maybe it’s because sexual violence is terrifyingly pervasive. Maybe it’s also because this use of fashion is so accessible.
“It’s just so easy. Everyone’s got something black to wear, everyone can turn up in black, everyone can chuck on a badge,” Whyte explains.
A sea of people in black for Thursdays in Black shows survivors silent solidarity, and provides survivors with a voiceless form of acknowledging their experience. That’s especially vital to advocacy in the sexual violence space because speaking up can retraumatise survivors, explains Whyte.
Wearing black is where it starts, but not where it ends. Thursdays in Black uses badges, pamphlets and social media to demand accountability and better policies from their universities.
Whyte and Lily Chen, two students at the University of Auckland, revived the COVID-dormant UoA branch of Thursdays in Black in 2021 after Stuff revealed that former head of the music school James Tibbles had faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct from students. Since then, Thursdays in Black UoA has put pressure on the university to do better with open letters, policy suggestions, repeated meetings with faculty and more.
“We can’t keep whispering about it [sexual violence], we have to hold the university accountable,” says Whyte.
The more attention and support they have, the more pressure they can exert. This is true of other marginalised groups, too. Chawla believes that the unapologetic self-expression and bright fashion of Pride has contributed to progress in LGBTQ+ policy by making lawmakers aware of the public’s values.
“When lawmakers become aware of our values, in an ideal world they will start to make decisions that act on those values, which is their job,” he says.
So are performers at Pride inherently activists? Is every drag performer on a float staging a protest against cis-heteronormativity?
“Subliminally,” answers draglesque artist The Bombay Bombshell, the reigning Mx Burlesque Aotearoa.
Draglesque is a portmanteau of ‘drag’ and ‘burlesque’. Burlesque is the “art of tease”, Bombay explains, while drag is fundamentally a performance and a lip sync that generally involves playfulness around gender performance. Both art forms break down stigmas around sex and sexuality, and Bombay puts them together.
Bombay isn’t sure she’d describe herself as an activist, exactly, but she is making change in society by doing what she loves.
“I think my forte is invading spaces,” she says. She tells me that she often performs at corporate functions in industries that aren’t necessarily “queer friendly”. She has received messages from staff members afterwards with emotional stories of finally feeling seen and heard in their work environment by her presence. Being visible helps to normalise queerness. She brings up the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep “reads Anne Hathaway to filth” when she says two belt options look exactly the same.
“She was explaining that everything Anne Hathaway wore was what this small group of people conceptualised five years ago. So I believe being in draglesque in those spaces, eventually in a few years [...] it will be okay for [staff members] to wear sequins and bright colours in the workplace. I think that is a form of activism, doing the work now, being in those spaces, and eventually in the future there will be safer spaces for our queer folk,” explains Bombay.
Clothing is a huge part of how she does her work. The burlesque aspect calls for outfits that can be removed in parts, to tease and tantalise. Drag performers often stuff and pad and cinch to transform their bodies. Iconic looks are essential to draglesque, so Bombay sews all of her own outfits. Her most iconic look is one she made out of reused New World shopping bags, which is both a tongue-in-cheek commentary on waste and a nostalgic delight.
I feel that her work aligns in many ways with fashion activism. She’s producing slow, custom fashion, with an attention to materiality. Though she doesn’t necessarily identify as an activist, it’s easy to see what she means when she says she’s doing the work.
A friend pointed out to me that often, marginalised people are saddled with the expectation that they must be activists, placing the burden of labour on their already heavy loads. It seems so obvious after they say it.
The Bombay Bombshell’s work has many facets of activism, but she is foremost an artist and performer who I was trying to confine to an activist box. Whyte, too, points out that society’s systems for responding to sexual misconduct places the labour on the survivor.
By fighting for visibility for experiences and issues facing marginalised groups and standing in solidarity – using every available tool, including fashion – activists and allies can reduce the weight of that burden a little bit.
