Supermodel, super changemaker, super woman. No Kill writer Anne Whiting chats with fashion industry critic and activist Cameron Russell after reviewing her powerful memoir, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone. As always, Russell has much to say about her “experience in an industry that often exploits and objectifies its workers in the name of ‘beauty'” and how this exploitation ultimately affects us all.
[Interview slightly abridged]
NKM/Anne: After so many years of activism (you started Supermodels Take It Off For Climate Change in 2009!) fighting for the cause of more ethical, equitable, eco-conscious fashion, how do you see the needle being moved? What do you think are the most significant strides?
Cameron: So many people are working to build sustaining ecosystems through fashion! The OR Foundation in Ghana, to Fibershed, to powerful labor organizing like the passage of SB62 (led by the Garment Worker Center in California) that established a guaranteed minimum wage for garment workers to massive strikes in Bangladesh—to the many brilliant designers making clothes by reworking and upcycling, like SUAY Shop in Los Angeles—the list of organizations, federations, institutions, movements, and businesses who are trying to get it right is long and growing.
Sure, they don’t rival the fashion industry yet, but they are growing knowledge and building systems to replace the old. And when you think about the fact that just 20 conglomerates own 97% of industry profits, well, we can offer way more than 20 excellent alternatives! Factor in the renaissance of making and visible mending on social media platforms, and the influx of young people joining knitting festivals and quilting guilds and the like, and I think there’s a strong argument that we’re in the midst of a profound culture shift away from disposability and away from fashion motivated primarily by profit.
Can you tell us a little bit about your conscious fashion shopping habits?
I love Remake’s 90 Day No New Clothes challenge. It’s a great way to evaluate consumption habits personally. I feel like I don’t buy much stuff, especially new. Still, when I did the challenge and paid close attention for 90 days, I made decisions differently: I borrowed a dress for an event that I might have otherwise purchased from a resale shop like The Real Real or Vestiaire, and I thought harder about what I had in my closet when I decided not to buy a fresh white button down I wanted to style an outfit with.
We know the way we consume fashion—like food, transportation, and a laundry list of other things—has to change. I think combining personal efforts to change our habits is a requirement both because it strengthens our resolve to push for system change and because it helps to build necessary alternatives in our homes and communities.
Re: Remake, tell us about your support of the Remake Fellowship?
I co-founded the Remake Fellowship to grow trusted relationships among fashion creatives in NY, LA, and London with labor organizers, academics, and policy-makers and provide opportunities for learning. I find our activism is most effective when it’s born out of loving and accountable relationships, sound research, and the wisdom that comes from sharing our experiences with one another.
Let’s talk about how imagery on Instagram is fueling overconsumption. How do you mitigate the constant images flooding our screens for new products, and what are the new visual messages — and the role of fashion models within — that we need instead?
I think fashion models are uniquely poised to shift culture right now because social media has challenged everyone to do the work of the model: to find a way to communicate from inside a frame.
I’ve spent the better part of a two decade career thinking about how to bring my unique skills and resources as a fashion model to advance movements for climate and social justice, and I know I’m not alone. How do I know? While researching for my book I read every model memoir I could get my hands on. I researched how women have tried to shift culture from in front of a camera, and I can tell you that I am far from the first person to find myself wondering how to do more than sell stuff.
There’s not just one answer; instead, I’d ask how we can better understand the technology of the camera and the photograph as so necessarily collaborative that we both accept our complicity in upholding the strictures of the male gaze and racial capitalism but also find we are more equipped to resist than maybe we know. Figuring out how to make better images requires some significant shifts. For starters, we must see ourselves as skilled workers when we are in front of the camera and believe we can skill-build to do better work there.
Do you think the media does enough to spotlight activist heroes and change makers vs celebrity gossip?
I think a big challenge for the media now is figuring out how to tell stories of the collective. Fashion media knows how to celebrate a single person –most often straight, white, young, wealthy, and able-bodied. It’s weaker at celebrating groups, cultures, and movements. For example, we see this playing out in the way fashion media covers the climate movement. They pluck a handful of beautiful young women out to celebrate, interview, award, and photograph while missing the elders, the comrades, the communities, and the cultures that make them who they are.
It’s not bad to tell the story of individual people, but when we only tell the story of individuals, we’re missing a big part of who we are as humans and how we make change.
In my work like The #MakeTheseWomenFamous campaign, I’ve tried to experiment with how this might look. We intentionally had multiple group covers, photoshoots of large groups, portfolios with many different people photographed and contextualized in relationship to one another. And I still don’t have a good answer.
I remain curious about how we can better tell stories of the collective in images and text to better understand ourselves as deeply interdependent, each finding healing and power in being part of a whole.
How can we teach young people that feeling beautiful is not about looking like models or buying the latest fads, but instead choosing kind/ethical products, and developing personal style for their unique bodies?
I’m not here to trash the work of models or muses in front of the camera! I get inspired by seeing how people find incredible ways to embody beauty, expression, sexuality, joy, grief, memory, belonging, resistance, etc. Luckily, I have a much wider lens than most mainstream fashion magazines, and I think a lot of young people do, too, which is why those magazines are struggling to connect with Gen Z.
But, for anyone scrolling Instagram or TikTok and feeling discouraged by a narrow vision of beauty, I’d say keep looking! Even though the algorithm and the advertisers are focused on selling, there are still many people for whom fashion and beauty are motivated by joy, pleasure, curiosity, expression, and a million other beautiful things. It can take time to find your people. Think about who makes you feel good about yourself. Maybe it’s someone in the real world. A best friend. Or an older sibling. Ask your friends who they admire or follow that makes them feel good about themselves.
You mention the concept of “co-authoring together”, and of “a fashion system committed to care, repair, collaboration, expression, and human need might look like.” What’s your strategy? How can we use our platforms for good even if we feel like we can’t make a difference or we don’t have enough followers?
Sharing and passing on clothes, especially passing on kids’ clothes, is a common practice among my friends and family. That’s a great place to start. Oh, and during the pandemic, I got into mending sweaters, and I love seeing my sister and my friends wear the sweaters with the little colorful patches I stitched. I advise practicing on rags, cloth napkins, and socks first (the stakes are lower!). I also turned worn-out kids’ clothes into patchwork quilts for all my niblings and upcycled a couple of jackets with appliqué and embroidery for friends. Making and crafting has been a great way to change my relationship with things.
As far as social media goes, I don’t think influence is all that tied to followers. It might be short-term, but organizing for real change requires deep, trusting relationships. So, I guess I’d say we should use our platforms to genuinely connect with each other, as much as that is possible.
–Anne Elizabeth Whiting
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