The news is everywhere: Gucci chose English teen Ellie Goldstein for its new beauty campaign in partnership with Vogue Italia. And what’s the news? She is the first Gucci model with Down syndrome. The young woman had already worked for brands like Nike and Vodafone, but the glamorous campaign with the prestigious Italian brand is on another level of modeling and can offer a new career path for Goldstein.
But can it spark a revolution in the fashion industry as a whole? I don’t think so.
In the last few years, the fashion system has become more and more involved in social issues, from racism to LGBTQ+ representation to disability awareness. And that’s great. We have positive and inspiring people as symbols of these topics, such as breathtaking models with disabilities or chronic illnesses.
Winnie Harlow is the first name that comes to mind: since her appearance on America’s Next Top Model, the Canadian beauty has been a beacon of hope for people with vitiligo and other skin conditions. The same goes for Diandra Forrest and Ruby Vizcarra, representing the outward beauty of people with albinism in gorgeous photoshoots and creating a new way of expressing creativity in the fashion and modeling world. Melanie Gaydos, who has a genetic syndrome called ectodermal dysplasia, and Jillian Mercado, who has muscular dystrophy, are other great examples of disabled people and diversity in the fashion system. But they all have something in common: their conditions are visible. Sure, they are very difficult situations to deal with, but they can be marketed. They can be glamorized. They can be profitable.
I mean, we all know Alessandro Michele and his unique visual style: he puts weird, strange, even ugly ensembles on the runway and somehow they become beautiful. So, it’s very on brand for him and Gucci to be interested in inclusiveness and diversity. And that’s great, really. Modeling is, after all, a very specific job that aims to sell a product, a style, a brand. So it seems only right that people chosen for a brand have to embody its aesthetic and visual style. In this sense, Ellie Goldstein is not an exception. She is perfectly connected with that various world of people that Alessandro Michele is creating for Gucci. His visual style is all about uniqueness, about feeling good in your own skin, regardless of your look, your gender, your sexuality and your aesthetic features. He can take you and make you into a creature of magical beauty, and that’s why everybody loves him.
But what about invisible illnesses? What happens when your uniqueness is internal rather than external, when your daily fight with a different body isn’t visible?
As a young woman who suffers from several chronic conditions, I know that an invisible illness is less palatable for fashion companies. They simply can’t put you in their very glamour box labeled “uniqueness and weirdness” because your pain and your being diverse are not apparent enough. It’s just painful and often embarrassing. And that’s ok. I mean, I don’t want to be a model. You know what kind of life a model leads? No sleep schedule, a lot of travelling, an impossible working rhythm, hours and hours of exercise and probably a diet that can’t fit into a chronically ill person’s need of medicine and supplements. It just couldn’t work. But it doesn’t mean we don’t like fashion. Some of us do. Some of us are highly interested in the fashion world. And where’s the problem, you may ask? There are lots of opportunities in the fashion industry that aren’t modeling, surely? Well, that’s correct, but it doesn’t mean we can take them.
I studied and worked and attended a lot of events in the fashion world and believe me, it’s not ready to understand us. Have you ever attended a fashion show? Or been an intern in a fashion company press office? Have you ever been around Fashion Week? It’s a nightmare for people with an invisible condition. You are not aesthetically “interesting” enough to be quirky and glamorous (I’m not saying that having Down syndrome is glamorous, mind you, but it’s profitable for fashion companies, it’s visible). You are just weird, achey and embarrassing for them. It doesn’t matter how good a writer you are, how brilliant the copy is that you can produce, how interesting your angle is in describing a collection. It doesn’t matter, if you arrive at fashion shows wearing orthopaedic shoes because you have fibromyalgia. It doesn’t matter, if you can’t rock the latest skintight dress because your PCOS make your stomach bloated. It doesn’t matter, if you have greasy skin because of a hormonal disorder.
All that matters in the fashion world is your look. Either you’re perfect and standardized or you are unique and diverse, but in a cool way. If you are just ill, you’re useless. I found it to be true when a fashion company I was working for in Milan fired me the exact same day I got my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I experienced it again when working as a freelance writer for fashion magazines. I would attend fashion shows and work crazy hours during the collective madness that is Fashion Week, and I would arrive at fashion shows sweaty and messy, feeling enormous pain from standing up and running from one part of Milan to the next. I was there on time, mind you, and I was more professional and more polite and I was working harder than many other people there. But I wasn’t looking perfect. Who cares, I thought, I’m not here to be looked at! I’m here to look at the collection and describe it in the most effective and inspiring way to my readers. Who cares if I have messy hair because I couldn’t possibly find the time and energy to go to the hairdresser?
It turned out they cared. All of them, I mean most of them. I was embarrassing them, I was ruining the event with my orthopaedic shoes and my bloated stomach and my messy hair. PR and press office people sometimes didn’t even read or look at my pieces about the show. They couldn’t be bothered with my imperfect body holding a perfectly fine head that could brilliantly narrate their collections and their events. They didn’t want my words if they needed to take my body too. They started putting me in the back at fashion shows, then stopped inviting me at all. And then they started talking about diversity, disability and inclusiveness when they could profit from it.
Image credit: Richard, enjoy my life!