Why Bother?

These are obvious questions: “Why bother?  Why try to influence Gucci to offer more sizes?”  After all, it’s easier and cheaper to take our money and shop somewhere other than Gucci when we need a dress.

For better or worse, it’s clothing by designers like Gucci that decorate magazines like Vogue and InStyle.   These designers whip an awful lot of people into a spending frenzy.  In 2005, Gucci alone had revenues of $2.3 billion, with North America accounting for sales of $463 million.  You can’t inspire those kinds of sales without influencing taste.  Unfortunately, Gucci (like many fashion houses) offers up a very narrow notion of what is beautiful.

Pretty dress, but the model is terribly gaunt.  Note her spindly legs, and her bony chest.

Yet another bony Gucci model.  Check out her neckline and collarbone.  The ensemble is very "Studio 54", and suggests a substitution of cocaine/nicotine for food.

Between the runway shows, the tiny sample sizes made available to fashion magazines for editorial work, and the sizes offered to the public that only go up to a size 10, Gucci systematically correlates thinness with its brand.  The irony is that clothing sales account for only 12% of Gucci’s revenues, and the bulk of its profits are generated from leather goods.  This means that Gucci has fostered a system where it trashes our body-image with its clothes, but buoys our mood with its bags.

In a nutshell:  Gucci embodies the power and perversity of fashion.