Beyond the Big Four: Carla Fernández Challenges Fashion’s Western Monopoly
By Audrey Treon
Carla Fernández’s tagline is “Fashion is not ephemeral.” Ironically enough, the example sentence defining the word “ephemeral” reads “Fashions are ephemeral.” So which is it? Mexican fashion designer Carla Fernández and the ethos behind her brand argue the former, and for good reason.
In the brand’s manifesto, Fernández opposes the idea that “fashion happens in Paris, New York, London, and Milan.” Connoisseurs of fashion take that a step further, believing that fashion happens wherever humanity happens and humanity happens wherever fashion happens. The two are interlinked. Viewing fashion through solely a Western lens ensures a lack of understanding and connection with fashion and the world. Prioritizing Western fashion over other cultures further perpetuates hierarchy and white supremacy within the industry, which has been an issue historically and currently.
Image Courtesy of Carla Fernández
The fashion capitals of the world are Paris, Milan, London, and New York, also known as The Big Four. These cities hold the most publicized and famous fashion week events of the year. Cities like Seoul and Tokyo are quickly growing in popularity, but the fashion industry in non-Western cities is repeatedly overlooked. Fashion is not specific to what city you’re in, fashion is not just Coco Chanel’s Little Black Dress or the most opulent dress to go down the runway. Fashion is everywhere, fashion is in everything. Carla Fernández rejects the hegemony that exists in the fashion industry.
“An agency of change and innovation, bringing new meaning to luxury fashion, the Carla Fernández team travels throughout Mexico visiting communities of artisans who specialize in handmade textiles and centuries-old indigenous techniques. The approach of the brand to these communities is contributing to sustaining ancient indigenous techniques and the people who collaborate with it.”
A glaring pattern in the industry is a lack of acknowledgement for everyone involved in the fashion process. We often attach credit to a singular name, whether it be a brand or person, but the process involves hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. Carla Fernández’s website lists the names of all the company employees as well as all the artisans they work directly with. The artisans are Mexican and Indigenous people whose techniques are integral to their cultural history and are working to keep their work alive within the changing fashion landscape. The work of these people often goes uncredited and overlooked — yet again, Carla Fernández is changing that pattern.
Image Courtesy of Carla Fernández
“For more than three thousand years those who weave and embroider have transmitted their fundamental knowledge from mother to daughter. If their techniques have survived it is precisely because they are a form of expression. In them the subjective and the collective are simultaneously manifested. Still, tradition is not suspended in time. In small towns and artisan communities styles change and evolve; creativity is awake, not dormant, and it gives way to new and unexpected designs.”
Special attention is paid to the techniques and approaches used in the designs. This strategy not only gives credit to indigenous techniques, it also democratizes fashion. Fashion should not be limited to the elites, to the ones who can afford a formal education in it. Fashion should be for everyone. We all experience and interact with fashion on a daily basis, yet the knowledge of it is coveted, almost kept secret for those “worthy” of it or in other words, those who have access to it.
How do we integrate these practices on a broader level? Integration takes intention — next time you’re itching to shop at Zara, look at a local artisan, chances are their garments are better and more ethically crafted. We as consumers have power, it may not seem like it at times, but we do. If we want to change the fashion industry for the better, we must change our practices for the better.
Fashion does not exist when we violently strip away its intrinsic humanity — its connection to the Earth and the people and animals that inhabit it. A real person made the shirt you’re wearing right now, the underwear you have on, the socks on your feet, a person made everything in your closet, not a machine. Fashion is not apolitical, fashion is not just a “hobby.” It is people’s livelihoods, passions, outlets, and so much more. Carla Fernández and her team respect fashion and all that it encompasses, and that is clear through their ethos and work.
