In June 2020, an open letter addressed to the management shook the walls of the Haute Ecole d’art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva. Anonymous students, former students and professors united under the Nous.HEAD collective heard “denouncing all forms of systemic and cultural discrimination” present within the institution. ” We refuse as artists to represent a school based on a bourgeois culture (…) colonial, validist, racist”, specified the letter made public on social networks.
The internationalization of the American Black Lives Matter movement in the spring of 2020 sent shockwaves through global public opinion, shaking up the creative industries in the process. Fashion, regularly criticized for its lack of diversity, in design studios and in fashion show castings, must take a stand on the fight against racism and questions of cultural appropriation. This wind of protest is blowing even in academic circles. Students raise their voices, criticizing teaching built on a vision “too western” of fashion, regretting the absence of a “pluriversal reading” cultural phenomena.
“Today’s students are increasingly aware of the issues of racism and decolonization; some jostle teachers who are not always up to date on these issuessays Rachel Marsil, young graduate of a master’s degree in textile design at the School of Decorative Arts. The importance of the countries of the South as sources of raw materials, labor and creativity still seems to me to be too often neglected in teaching. If this knowledge is not passed on, how can we really understand the history of clothing and be clear-sighted about today’s economic and political issues? », she asks.
“It is quite hypocritical to deny the influence of African or Afro-American design in current fashion. » Ibrahima Gueye, former student at the French Fashion Institute (IFM)
This generation, more committed than the previous ones, does not hesitate to point out what it considers to be shortcomings in the courses delivered. “It’s a pity that we don’t receive more theoretical background on these questions; and then it is quite hypocritical to deny the influence of African or Afro-American design in current fashion”, underlines Ibrahima Gueye, student at the French Fashion Institute (IFM) from 2017 to June 2022.
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