Despite the oncoming stream of criticism Karl Lagerfeld faced with his stance on feminism, he had calmly responded with the mention of his mother being a feminist, and that he could not care less if people were against his idea. Feminism to Lagerfeld was “something light-hearted, not a truck driver for the feminist movement.”
On the other hand, designers like Alexander McQueen support the empowerment of women through fashion in a vastly different manner. Whereas others wanted women to feel authoritative and strong through hard edges, McQueen wanted to make women in objects of desires. For the longest time, it has always remained a debate whether McQueen was for or against women due to a long-standing contradiction between the words he said, and garments
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Nevertheless, empowerment does not seem to be interchangeable both ways. Despite being able to incorporate menswear into womenswear for something more androgynous, it is hardly recognised amongst men to adopt the essence of womenswear and to merge it with menswear -- for men. It is easy to envision masculinity being tied to the female body, but not otherwise as it is something embarrassing for a man to be seen as ‘effeminate’. This is also probably why women seek to find confidence and empowerment through various sources, if potent parts of the gender norms were changed especially in such a sudden manner, “the public reacts as if basic gender conventions are being threatened” (Paoletti and Kidwell, 2007). Yuniya Kawamura (2005) argues that clothes are just clothes, it is but a tangible material product, while ‘fashion’ is much more: it is a symbolic product. Fashion has always been tightly intertwined with the female body such that men construes the idea of adopting feminine symbols for existing menswear as something of