St Andrews' Charity Fashion Show, or FS as its better known, took over lower college lawn on Saturday, February 15th, putting on one of the most renowned social events of the season. Each year, FS choses a different theme around which to base its show. This year, it was Skin.
Skin can cover a multitude of sins. But what was this year’s FS really about? What does the choice of this theme tell us about the political and social concerns plaguing our student body (*no pun intended*)?
I’ve always been of the opinion that fashion is a sound measure of social attitudes and changes – a physical manifestation of societal aspirations. So what does FS convey about St Andrews?
If the term microcosm can be truer of one place than any other, I feel St Andrews would be such a place. Nowhere else are individuals from such diverse national, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds forced together in an especially tiny melding pot. Ergo, FS must reflect some fairly important global themes.
The show opened with models in classic winter gear – full coats, in cool tones of white and blue, with brown accents. As the show progressed, models became less and less clad, ending up in swimming costumes.
The FS Creative Manifesto makes it clear that Skin is not just about fashion, but conveys a wider vision. It states: “The final show will feature a powerful progression from fully clothed to naked, symbolising body empowerment and liberation.”
To me, the show's movement towards liberation reflects our generation’s constant desire for progress. Progress in our governments. Progress in ourselves. Progress in the availability of opportunity.
Lightweight, flowy fabrics were used to mirror the way skin moves. My personal favourites were a set of nude-coloured pieces – all of which played subtly with the relationship between dress and undress. This was part of FS's creative vision, as outlined in the manifesto, and cleverly achieved.
There was also emphasis placed on not sexualising skin, but valuing it as our largest organ, crucial to keeping us alive. It’s thought-provoking to move our perception of nudity away from Original Sin and towards something more.
What exactly? More clinical, less vulnerable? Or just as personal, but not something to be ashamed of? Are St Andrews students embracing a mentality of sexual liberation? A look at 601 on a Wednesday would, perhaps, suggest so…
Skin straddles the everyday and the outlandish, the provocative and the prudish. FS distilled these dichotomies into the show, building to the climatic penultimate number: nearly-naked models lightly covered with a veil.
Juxtapositions are, of course, frequent in the world we're living in – a world where a politician like Trump inhabits ostensibly the largest democratic institution, a world where the largest pop culture icons are taking a stand about workers' rights, a world in which human rights are simultaneously protected yet under threat.
Though a student fashion show, telling stories through light linens with a splash of leopard print, FS is an important data point on the larger graph of pop culture. Skin spoke to the contradictions of modern society, and I applaud its effort.
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