The Politics of Fashion: Louis Vuitton
The fashion forecast for 2024 is all about the West. Louis Vuitton and Polo Ralph Lauren both explore the myth and reality of the American West through their current and upcoming lines. While western fashion has been bubbling up through the trend cycle for some time, both these brands place emphasis on Indigenous textiles, adornment, and western iconography. In this two-part examination, we will first take a look at Louis Vuitton’s Ready-to-Wear fashion show for Fall-Winter 2024. While Pharrell’s latest collection for Louis Vuitton makes strides for Native representation in the fashion world, the interpretation sends mixed signals.
Just this Tuesday, Louis Vuitton unveiled its Menswear Collection for FW24. Inspired by the mythological American Cowboy, Pharrell set out to connect Paris with his home state of Virginia in this most recent collaboration. The show itself presented Pharrell’s Damoflauge designs alongside classic LV duffle bags made of cow print, bolo ties, chaps, and cowboy hats. Earth tones, denim, and the checkered flannel of the Western working class come under the Louis Vuitton touch and transform into tanned leather, denim pantsuits, and Damier button-downs. At the center of this line is Native American artistry. Pharrell brings in collaborators from the Dakota and Lakota nations, according to the Associated Press, in the designs. The Lakota and Dakota nations, along with other Great Plains tribes, are known for their beadwork. Some pieces did give reference to this, like the beaded pinstripe suit and the crystal appliqué cardigan. The show also features the group Native Voices of Resistance, a music collective of Native performers. This center-stage moment, followed by the lines “Good people, been down for so long” from collective performance with Native Voices, Mumford & Sons, and Pharrell, sends a powerful message of resistance and celebration. Diversity on the international runway brings attention to Native communities who have so often been removed from American life and history.
via Louis Vuitton
However, this powerful message came into conflict with aspects of the show. Even before the models hit the runway, we are primed to interpret the show as Paris to Virginia. Yet, that perception is muddied when the scenography evokes the sandstone of the Southwest and the Black Hills of South Dakota. This led to outlets like HighSnobiety misrepresenting the set as being “a desolate Virginian mountain range”. This may seem like nitpicking, but I care for two reasons. One, I grew up in and around the rural West and Southwest, and they are not the verdant mountains of Virginia. To equate the two is just bad geography. But more importantly, with this undercurrent of Native inspiration, this unbalanced presentation reinforces the false belief that US indigenous cultures are a monolith where Native tribes and their traditional homelands are interchangeable. The Great Plains are not Virginia; the Dakota and Lakota are not the Monacan. This lack of cultural distinction also resulted in HighSnobiety misrepresenting Native Voices of Resistance as being solely a Cherokee group, although they did correct it later on. This is not the fault of this publication (although it still isn’t a great look) nor the Native collaborators. Rather, the blame rests on the organizers for how they advertised, presented, and left out important information during the livestream. And all this falls beneath the myth of the American Cowboy.
As we get into the fashion, Louis Vuitton’s history as a luggage brand and its philosophy of “cultural exchange through travel” conflicts with the messaging presented earlier of resistance and celebration. As models carry or even cart trunks onto the runway, it elicits the image of Manifest Destiny: the idea that (specifically white) Americans had a divine right to settle land west of the Mississippi River. For much of the United States’ history, Manifest Destiny has been used to justify the displacement of Indigenous peoples and the settlement of the American West. The concept of the Cowboy, the platonic ideal guiding this fashion line, was, and is still, used to further justify this cycle of displacement and settlement. Today, the Cowboy serves as an American folk identity: rugged men, wholly independent and free, but who also fight to secure the “inhospitable” land of the American West from the tribes and nations which already thrived there.
via Louis Vuitton
The original cowboys and cattle herders were Mexican, Black, and Native, a thread we can see in the diverse cast of models on the runway. Yet, the Cowboy still stands opposed to these groups in the dominant American mythology. It was not too long ago that I and many other American children played “Cowboys and Indians” on the playground. So, as the luggage comes out onto the runway, it’s not hard to imagine covered prairie wagons filled with people and what they could pack, coming to take land away from the generations that lived there. This is not to say the show failed. Great strides were taken to bring Native voices to the international stage. And, Pharrell brought quintessential and working-class fashion up to luxury status. Returning back to the philosophy of the Louis Vuitton brand, I cannot understate how pivotal it is to recognize and share Native American artistry with the world. However, the way in which the brand presented these voices leaves much to be desired. Does Pharrell perpetuate a lie used to dominate land and people, or does he reclaim the Cowboy by showing us the people who would have truly fit the role? The American West is punctuated by propaganda and myth, and to successfully navigate the story into the modern day, we must pay attention to each detail.
