When fashion brands become activists
As Black Lives Matter protesters take to the streets, brands find it better to speak up than stay silent
Lou Stoppard JUNE 12 2020
It is a story of impossible positions. Since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police on May 25, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest the racism prevalent across America and beyond. For protesters, it is a situation that can be tolerated no more; for brands, it is a communications crunch. Theirs is a tricky, if not a particularly heart-wrenching, dilemma: to speak up in support, or to stay glossy, sanitised and silent?
In recent days, many have tended towards the former — replacing the peppy optimism that defined most brands’ tone of voice on social media with sombre pseudointellectual piety. The phrase “silence is violence” has swelled online and pressure has built. But, in turn, have come valid accusations of lip service, hypocrisy or duplicity.
Amazon — a company that, to many, symbolises all that is wrong with capitalist culture — released a statement on Twitter: “The inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people in our country must stop. Together we stand in solidarity with the Black community — our employees, customers and partners — in our fight against systemic racism and injustice.”
On social media, users were quick to point out that this is the same company that sells facial-recognition software to law-enforcement agencies, and that has fired employees for demanding better working conditions.
Gucci, which weathered a racism scandal last year when a sweatshirt for sale on its website was accused of evoking black face, posted a cheerful text to its Instagram, quoting activist and author Cleo Wade. “How do we speak to bias and bigotry? Start by having the first conversation at your own kitchen table,” it read.
“Remember that sweater tho,” replied one user in the comments. Two days later, the brand responded again, with a post directly referencing Floyd and promising donations to organisations including the NAACP.
Nike received a more positive response with its “Don’t Do It” social media campaign. “Don’t turn your back on racism,” it implored, with a simple white font on a black background. “Don’t sit back and be silent.” The posts were widely shared, including by its arch-rival Adidas, on Twitter, in a move intended to be a case study in solidarity. “Never thought I’d see this,” replied one user.
And yet cynicism has been widespread. “Now more than ever, our multinational corporation that made billions selling surveillance equipment to police and exploiting slave labor believes in empowering the black community,” tweeted the comedian Steven Phillips-Horst, mocking the anodyne activist-speak that has become the new lingua franca of social media, branded mailouts and ecommerce.
Claims of togetherness, of safe spaces, of solidarity, of “the fight” — meaningful phrases rooted in the worlds of activism and organising — are now trotted out with the same ease as marketing clichés such as “chic”, “curated” or “must-have”.
Recent years have seen the convergence of brands and activism. This is, in part, the result of changing communication patterns. Following the advent of social media, brands have learnt to engage us through the same channels as our partners or friends, and the informality of these platforms has shaped corporate communications.
This is evident in the response to the protests, with many brands adopting the language of an actual person — an ally, a friend. There is a dissonance there; brands are not human, they cannot “stand with” us, or “listen”, their bodies cannot be harmed in protest. The risk is not life or death; it is bottom line.
And yet such language can lift sales. In 2018, an international Edelman Earned Brand study found that 64 per cent of consumers will buy or boycott a brand solely because of its stance on a social or political issue. When Nike released a campaign fronted by former NFL player and black rights activist Colin Kaepernick with the slogan, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything”, it saw a 31 per cent boost in sales in the week immediately following its release, despite criticism from some conservative outlets.
“It doesn’t matter how many people hate your brand as long as enough people love it,” Nike founder Phil Knight told Fast Company in response. “You can’t try and go down the middle of the road. You have to take a stand on something.”
This is an enormous U-turn from the past, when brands were committed to one thing; neutrality, an attitude encapsulated in Michael Jordan’s famous quote “Republicans buy sneakers, too”, said when refusing to endorse Harvey Gantt, an African-American, during the 1990 Senate race in North Carolina. And yet, last week, Jordan pledged $100m to “organizations dedicated to ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education”.
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The shift has been watched with interest by Kenya Hunt, fashion director of Grazia UK and an avid mentor working to get more black talent into the fashion industry. Brand activism can help causes, she says. “We wouldn’t have seen those arrests happen [of the police officers involved in Floyd’s death] if it wasn’t for this massive outcry, and the brands have played a part in that, in putting those statements out there. It adds gas to the fire,” she says.
But they must move with caution. “A lot of these brands have histories that can be problematic and chequered when it comes to a number of things, including race,” she says, pointing out that fashion has a history of co-opting and appropriating black culture without diversifying its workforce. While Hunt encourages brands to “do the right thing” by speaking up, they should be prepared for “blowback”.
“We all know how a lot of these companies look behind the scenes — they are overwhelming white,” she says.
Indeed, uncomfortable truths can be found in the linguistic subtleties on brands’ posts — the accidental deployments of “we” or “us” or “them”, which reveal the divide that the copywriters or CEOs unthinkingly put between their employers and the black community. Lyst, the fashion search platform, referred to how “we’re taking a moment to listen, learn and reflect” — othering black people as a separate entity, there to be heard from.
High-fashion brands have a particularly abysmal track record when it comes to representation and diversity. The LVMH-owned label Celine declared on Instagram that it “stands against all forms of discrimination, oppression and racism”. In response, the blogger Bryan Grey Yambao, known as Bryanboy, posted a video of himself laughing while scrolling through the brand’s Instagram feed, filled with pictures of white models. “Where are the people of colour, Celine?” he asks.
Speaking out becomes a dialogue — a process of accepting criticism that each statement, or each publicised action, is not enough. Ironically, particular criticism has fallen on Virgil Abloh, founder of Off-White and menswear creative director of Louis Vuitton, and one of fashion’s few black lead designers. He screen-grabbed and posted to Instagram a donation of $50 to Miami art collective Fempower — an amount that was deemed to be meagre by followers (he later clarified that he had donated far more).
The current fumbling continues an awkward few months for brands, which are already in a tone-of-voice crisis, grappling with how to avoid seeming crass while pushing product during a pandemic. Most have jumped from one cause to the next — their “Stay Home” posts replaced with new hashtags. The concern is how swiftly these issues become a new set of marketing parameters, a theme of the month; feminism replaced by health replaced by combating racism and then something else.
The benefit comes if they “back up the statements with actual action,” says Hunt. “A black square on Instagram is not enough,” she says, referring to the Black Out Tuesday initiative on June 2, which saw millions of users, and many brands, post black squares to the platform as a supposed sign of solidarity. “Brands have to be careful — consumers will remember if you engage and then don’t back it up.”
On Instagram, the speaker and writer Aja Barber penned a letter to brands. “We see you capitalising on black pain,” she wrote. “Using it to pad your social media and keep yourself relevant in the algorithm.” Instead of statements, she asked for brands to look at their internal policies, ensure proper pay for garment workers and create more diverse influencer campaigns.
Most praise has gone to brands that are putting their money where their mouth is. Glossier announced that it would be donating $1m to black resistance causes and black-owned beauty brands. Rihanna paused sales of her Fenty brands for the whole of Tuesday, their homepages displaying a list of organisations to donate to.
The London-based clothing brand A-Cold-Wall, founded by Samuel Ross, announced a grant scheme for 10 independent black businesses, amounting to £25,000, a considerable sum given that his brand has only existed since 2015. The recipients include Artels, which offers modern Caribbean cuisine, Michael Omotosho, who designs household appliances focused on light and energy, and Crypcentra, a cryptocurrency analytics platform.
Ross says this period has made him rethink his role from that of a designer to that of “a strategist, a spokesperson, a leader” within the black community. “I am thinking about how we can compound resources, equity and how we identify sectors where there is not enough visibility,” he says.
On Black Out Tuesday, as other brands posted their black squares, Dior opted for something more bespoke. A black square embellished with the text #DiorStandsWithYou — a neat Dior logo nestled at the bottom. “Your hashtag is still an ad,” replied one user. “Try harder, please.”
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