It's time to banish the view that women can't care about Brexit and their new handbag

It's time to banish the view that women can't care about Brexit and their new handbag

Human Rights lawyer, Amal Clooney. CREDIT: REX

When you look at a picture of Emma Watson, does your mind instantly focus on the last speech she made about the theory of political, economic and social equality or can’t you see past that great new shade of lipstick she’s wearing? Do you see the with contempt for anyone who has ever commented on one of Watson’s red carpet looks, or think, “She’s definitely onto something when she questions how the fight for equality synonymous with man-hating… I wonder where she got that jacket?”

Emma Watson is a Global Goodwill Ambassador for United Nations Women. CREDIT: REX

I ask because a. it’s woman’s day next Tuesday, so why not take some time to ponder what the heck that means: b there was a heated debate in The Telegraph offices this week between those who feel it objectifies women to discuss their clothes and those who feel the issue is more complex. I wasn’t there, but in Milan, objectifying endless outfits. But I get it – this argument against critiquing what anyone’s wearing. I don’t agree with it though. Analysing someone’s choice of outfit is legitimate, surely, especially on the fashion pages. And it’s not the same as verbally assaulting someone’s face or body. I try to keep that in mind when I’m doing red carpet coverage.

French writer and political activist, Simone de Beauvoir CREDIT: GETTY

  So why engage in it at all? Who doesn’t enjoy looking at glamorous people? Besides, this is public service stuff: should the rest of us find ourselves at a black tie event, there are lessons to learned. Ah, but is it fair, given that we don’t write about the men so much, because they all dress pretty much the same? Of course not – the women get far more lucrative advertising deals out of their red carpet forays. Some of them even enjoy it. As Julianne Moore recently told me, “it’s not such a terrible thing to do, to have someone put you in a beautiful dress”.

As ever, it’s a question of degree. I spend weeks of my life going to the fashion capitals where the days (and nights) are filled with people posing in outlandish fashion statements, willing the paparazzi to notice them (and I’m not talking about the models, who have a respectable, professional job to do). It’s human narcissism laid bare, and it’s cringe-making. It gets so bad that sometimes you have to come back home between shows, so you can re-enter earthly orbit and just wear jeans (and I don’t mean the ones that cost £880), because you’re not one of those people who are only defined by fashion.

American political scientist and diplomat, Condoleeza Rice. Credit: Getty

Actually, contrary to what appears on certain strands of social media, hardly anyone is only defined by fashion, anymore that they’re only defined by their golf swing or their brand new Audi R8. It’s true that the industry has become a behemoth – far bigger and more powerful than it was two decades ago. Even so, it doesn’t have a sinister hold over women’s brain cells, or their independence.

Condemning anyone who’s ever found themselves diverted by Watson’s new haircut or Amal’s latest handbag is like branding everyone who’s ever had a sneaky Twix as a (self-induced) diabetic drain on the NHS. The issues become even more complex when Clooney and Watson not only evidently enjoy dressing up but talking about it. As do (or did) Dame Natalie Massenet, Condoleeza Rice, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Gloria Steinhem, Zadie Smith, Coco Chanel, Miriam Gonzales Durantes, Nancy Mitford and the Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche – not one of whom could be described as lacking in either brain cells or feminist credentials. 

Dame Natalie Massanet; fashion entrepreneur and former journalist, who founded the designer fashion portal Net-a-Porter.

So why are we still even debating whether a woman can be intelligent, feminist and have a penchant for Christopher Kane? I used to think it was a guilt hang-over from the second world war, which made frivolous purchases appear anti-patriotic. But on the contrary, Britain’s coalition government, lead by the (Savile Row dressed) Churchill, proved surprisingly receptive to the idea that fashion, grooming, and keeping up appearances were essential to the war effort. It even encouraged designers to contribute to the Austerity clothing scheme with the aim of providing well-designed, high quality clothing for the masses – an early forerunner of Designers at Debenhams.
Reluctantly I have to point the finger at cossetted baby boomers who sneered at the idea of making an effort – and Simone de Beauvoir, who despite being phenomenally chic, in a Wallis Simpson vein, wrote the most appalling guff about the impulse to look one’s best. Here’s a snippet: “Dressing up, “ she wrote in 1961, “is feminine narcissism in concrete form; it is a uniform and an adornment; by means of it the woman who is deprived of doing anything feels that she expresses what she is.” Really Simone? That might have been true of Emma Bovary, but even in 1961, women were finding other means of self-expression. Yet being French and an Existentialist to boot, de Beauvoir’s do-as-I-say-not-as-I-dress message, has cast a long shadow.

English novelist, Zadie Smith. Credit: Rex

For decades after – and clearly even now – that brains and a delight in the visual (though not of course the sacred Fine Arts) are incompatible. “One night not too long ago, “Nora Ephron recounted, deliciously, in 1970, “I was on a radio show talking about an article I had written for Esquire on Helen Gurley Brown (founding editor of Cosmopolitan) and I was interrupted by another guest, a folk singer, who had just finished a 25 minute lecture on the need for peace. “ I can’t believe we’re talking about Helen Burley Brown, “ he said, “when there’s a war going on in Vietnam. “Well I care that there’s a war in Indochina and I demonstrate about it; and I care that there’s a women’s liberation movement, and I demonstrate for it. But I also go to the movies incessantly, and have my hair done once a week, and cook dinner every night, and spend hours in front of the mirror trying to make my eyes look symmetrical, and I care about those things too…”

 

Perhaps this refusal to countenance ways in which the seemingly frivolous and the seemingly serious can not only co-exist, but blur, is a geographical and cultural problem confined to modern western societies. In an essay entitled Why Can’t Smart Women Love Fashion? for Elle Magazine two years ago, Ngozi Adiche recalled how, when she arrived from Nigeria at her American university, she felt overdressed and unsophisticated. Dressing down was the only way to be taken seriously, academically. For her university administrator mother and friends back in Nigeria, not appearing well dressed, feminine and “well-lotioned” was frowned upon, 'as though her appearance were a character failing. “She doesn’t look like a person,” my mother would say’.
In the end we all have to get dressed and every well known feminist, from Andrea Dworkin to Naomi Wolf has constructed some kind of image for themselves. It doesn’t stop them thinking, even if they’re wrong about clothes.