Fashion and resistance once went together like Cinderella and her glass slipper, but lately the two have seemingly separated.
At the 2024 Met Gala celebrating delicate antique garments in its “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” theme, stars played it straight with florals and darkness, honoring the dress code of “The Garden of Time.” Simultaneously, New York’s Hunter College students in protest of the war in Gaza chanted “We will not stop, we will not rest” just outside the annual gathering.
Celebrities and designers essentially ignored humanitarian crises of the world — from Israel’s war with Palestinians in the Gaza strip to increasing instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo — during an event that isn’t usually shy about welcoming sociopolitical disruption.
Days later and three miles away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art gala, students ushering in the future of fashion organized on the streets and backstage.
At the Fashion Institute of Technology’s annual Future of Fashion runway show, students from the Students For Justice in Palestine organization, a club not recognized by the university, demanded transparency over their school’s financial investment in war.
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“Our school prides itself on morality, yet (is) still invested in a lot of companies that we don’t believe are moral,” Jeremy Noon, a junior at FIT studying cosmetic and fragrance marketing, told USA TODAY outside the venue.
Inside the event,…
