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Adina-Laura Achim

After decades of over-sexualisation and gender sexism in advertising campaigns, marketers have discovered that “femvertising”, or selling empowerment, is a gold mine for an industry that has been trying to build a connection with an emancipated generation of young women.
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According to Harvard Business Review, women drive around 70-80 per cent of consumer purchases, and fashion brands are eager to incorporate feminist concepts. In the era of the #MeToo movement, the luxury industry is embracing feminism.

For Chanel’s spring 2015 collection, Karl Lagerfeld envisioned a political protest, with signs that read “Ladies First” and “History is Her Story”.
Dior presented three more designs in its recent autumn/winter 2019 show, signalling “Sisterhood is global”, “Sisterhood is powerful” and “Sisterhood is forever”.

Its spring 2017 ready-to-wear collection launched slogan T-shirts with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s words “We Should All be Feminists”.
Vivienne Westwood has been the spokeswoman for the ideology since day one, and Miuccia Prada dedicated her entire spring 2018 collection to feminism and femininity.
One might question Lagerfeld’s commitment to female empowerment given some of his past comments (such as “no one wants to see curvy women on the runway”), but it is hard to dispute Chanel’s feminist genes.
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This is a brand created by the visionary Gabrielle Chanel, who dedicated her life to the emancipation of women. She freed women from corsets as well as from prohibitive and archaic moral codes.
I could help women gain visibility and create a vast community of sisterhood that is inclusive and self-aware
Maria Grazia Chiuri
Chanel’s commitment to women was also seen in 2007 when Maureen Chiquet was appointed CEO. Chiquet became commander of the fashion powerhouse in an age when few billion-dollar enterprises gave women the opportunity to shatter the glass ceiling.
Now the house has nominated Lagerfeld’s long-time protégé, Virginie Viard, as its new creative director. Her first collection for Chanel glorified women and promoted a refined, soft look that honoured feminism while recognising individuality.
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Gabrielle Chanel’s strong vision supporting the emancipation of women remains an inspiration today for Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion.
“Our founder, Gabrielle Chanel, is a unique and powerful woman. Her fashion and her ideas were directed towards the future and [helped construct] modernity. She was not simply designing clothes – she had a new vision of the world and women who worked, travelled and played sports. Her strong vision of supporting the emancipation of women remains an inspiration today,” says Pavlovsky.

The House of Dior is no stranger to feminism. Under Maria Grazia Chiuri’s leadership, the brand has worked silently to dismantle gender stereotypes and empower young women.
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“The white T-shirt that hit the runway in the first show with the words of Chimamanda was my declaration of intent. My manifesto. Fashion is a powerful tool and we can use it to send a loud and clear message to a wide audience. I realised that with this simple gesture, with my actions and my words, I helped pick up the thread of an important conversation,” explains Chiuri, creative director of Dior.
[Gabrielle Chanel’s] strong vision supporting the emancipation of women remains an inspiration today
Bruno Pavlovsky
Chiuri drove meaningful change. She launched Women@Dior, a year-long women’s mentorship programme that empowers students, offering them the skills and confidence to succeed in today’s dynamic labour market. She has worked with women from different fields – artists, scholars, anthropologists and craftswomen.
Dior's Maria Grazia Chiuri: what you need to know about how she is shaking up the fashion world
“I could help women gain visibility and create a vast community of sisterhood that is inclusive and self-aware,” Chiuri said.

Dior and Chiuri are both more complex than T-shirts with “We Should All Be Feminists” logos and hashtags with #TheWomenBehindMyDress. This is a brand that has a formidable feminist ideology at its core.
In an era when women were encouraged to be naive social swans, the founding designer, Christian Dior, legitimised female power. The couturier had women as advisers, muses and confidants.
His closeness to Mitzah Bricard, Raymonde Zehnacker, Marguerite Carre and Suzanne Luling is proof that Dior created a self-reliance model for women long before feminism became a social media hashtag.

Chiuri is a champion for women’s rights. She made feminism a chic concept, bringing it to an audience that wasn’t susceptible to social issues.
“I am committed to feminism. It’s a constant responsibility that plays out first and foremost through work and renews itself on a daily basis. One of the most inspiring slogans for me, coined by feminist activists in the late 60s, is ‘The personal is political’. This rings true now more than ever,” she says.
Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri expresses her love of dance with costumes for ballet show ‘Nuit Blanche’
Chiuri notes that when she started working at Dior, she wondered “how best to stand by the side of women today”. She reflected on the heritage of Dior, “which from its very foundation has expressed a precise definition of what it means to be feminine”, and from that groundwork she developed her personal platform.
Chiuri did not restart Dior as a feminist brand, but she built on the existing character and designed a conventional, libertarian model.

There are brands such as Phillip Lim that have a strong feminist ethos. They do not need political runway statements or inspiring social media hashtags as the labels themselves are the poster child for strong, independent women.
From its female-friendly corporate culture to garments that channel practicality and are size-inclusive, everything manifests feminism at Phillip Lim 3.1.
The founders – Phillip Lim and Zhou Wen – built the brand with a community of determined, self-reliant women in mind. CEO and co-founder Zhou is a female professional who exemplifies hard work and determination. “Fashion and style are an instant language,” Zhou told STYLE.
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“[It is] the secret handshake between us as humans before we even say one word because we are visual, aesthetic creatures”. She understands the ins and outs of this instant language – she built a multimillion- dollar enterprise together with Lim.
“From the beginning, we’ve wanted to create well-designed, wearable clothes for the working woman who is thoughtful and smart. [Our clothes] will be her modern-day armour,” says Zhou.
Realness and individualism were prioritised in designs so customers could feel like an “elevated” form of themselves, not a copy of someone else.
“For me, there is nothing more personal, and nothing that is a greater privilege, than knowing our clothes carry women [and men] through the many small triumphs and struggles of their daily lives,” says Zhou.
We live in an age when feminism has become a brand itself. As consumers become more sophisticated, intelligent and socially conscious, using the message merely as a marketing tool is a dangerous game.
Building a brand that has women at the forefront and core should be a prevailing initiative for the whole fashion industry to make effective changes.
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Fashion

Feminist chic: How Chanel and Dior empower today’s women

The late German designer Karl Lagerfeld (far right) appears with models who staged a demonstration at the end of his spring/summer 2015 women’s ready-to-wear collection for Chanel during Paris Fashion Week in September 2014. Photo: Reuters

DIOR_AUTUMN-WINTER_2019-2020_FIRST_LOOKS_©MORGAN_O'DONOVAN_9

1937, Paris, France --- French fashion designer Coco Channel, in profile reclining on a chaise lounge with cigarette, wearing a dark dress with gold medallion necklaces and a ribbon in her hair; photographed in Paris in 1937. --- Image by ® CondÚ Nast Archive/CORBIS

--2. GIRL POWER-- A model presents a creation for Christian Dior during the 2017 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show, on September 30, 2016 in Paris. / AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS GUILLOT

DIOR_AUTUMN-WINTER_2019-2020_SAVOIR-FAIRE_SKIRTS_©SOPHIE_CARRE_6

Phillip Lim New York Fashion Week RTW FW19_20 - New York City - February 2019

Coco chanel

Paris Fashion Week: Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri chooses flats over heels, while Iris van Herpen hypnotises with satin

A model presents a creation from Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri’s autumn/winter 2019/2020 haute couture collection for Christian Dior at Paris Fashion Week. Photo: EPA-EFE

epa07688013 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

TOPSHOT - Models present creations by Iris van Herpen during the Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

PARIS, FRANCE - JULY 01: attends the Christian Dior  Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2019 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on July 01, 2019 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images for Dior)

epa07687974 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07687726 Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri takes to the catwalk after presenting her Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

A model presents a creation by Iris van Herpen during the Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON / AFP)

epa07688033 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07688007 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07688034 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

A model presents a creation by Iris van Herpen during the Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

TOPSHOT - A model presents a creation by Iris van Herpen during the Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

epa07688029 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

US actress Elisabeth Moss poses prior to the start of the Christian Dior Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP)

epa07687719 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07687981 A model presents a creation from the Fall/Winter 2019/20 Haute Couture collection by Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior fashion house during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 01 July 2019. The presentation of the Haute Couture collections runs from 30 June to 04 July. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

TOPSHOT - A model presents a creation by Iris van Herpen during the Women's Fall-Winter 2019/2020 Haute Couture collection fashion show in Paris, on July 1, 2019. (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON / AFP)

Paris Fashion Week: Kate Moss and Kelly Osbourne marvel at Dior’s sparkling show

A model presents a creation from Dior’s spring/summer 2020 men’s collection at Paris Fashion Week last Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

epa07663773 A model presents creations from the Spring/ Summer 2020 Men's collection by Belgian designer Kris Van Assche for Berluti during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/CAROLINE BLUMBERG

epa07664276 A model presents a creation from the Spring/Summer 2020 Men's collection by Dior during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07663777 A model presents creations from the Spring/ Summer 2020 Men's collection by Belgian designer Kris Van Assche for Berluti during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/CAROLINE BLUMBERG

epa07663767 A model presents creations from the Spring/ Summer 2020 Men's collection by Belgian designer Kris Van Assche for Berluti during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/CAROLINE BLUMBERG

epa07664270 A model presents a creation from the Spring/Summer 2020 Men's collection by Dior during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07664278 A model presents a creation from the Spring/Summer 2020 Men's collection by Dior during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

epa07663774 US model Gigi Hadid presents a creation from the Spring/ Summer 2020 Men's collection by Belgian designer Kris Van Assche for Berluti during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/CAROLINE BLUMBERG

(190622) -- PARIS, June 22, 2019 (Xinhua) -- A model presents a creation of Dior Homme's Spring/Summer 2020 collections in Paris, France, June 21, 2019. (Xinhua/Piero Biasion)

epa07664269 A model presents a creation from the Spring/Summer 2020 Men's collection by Dior during the Paris Fashion Week, in Paris, France, 21 June 2019. The presentation of the Spring/Summer 2020 menswear collections runs from 18 to 23 June 2019. EPA-EFE/IAN LANGSDON

From Gucci to Dior: how luxury brands cleverly use social media like WeChat to engage the China market

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Feminist chic: How Chanel and Dior empower today’s women

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Fashion brands are eager to incorporate feminist concepts and to dismantle gender stereotypes

Fashion brands are eager to incorporate feminist concepts and to dismantle gender stereotypes