Fashion icon Tom Ford says cancellation culture restricts creativity

Kicking off clothing and fragrances from his eponymous design house and after stints as creative director for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford is one of the most well-known names in the fashion world. However, he sees troubled times ahead for his industry.

“There is a zero-tolerance policy, which is great in many ways, but it is very difficult to manage if you are a public figure or if you are running a company,” He said Wednesday evening standard.

“Yves Saint Laurent sugar collection, farmers will never be able to collect” in the midst of the current uproar “cultural appropriation,” he explained. “As a designer, of course we always appropriated things from many different cultures, but it was seen as a celebration … now you have to think twice because that could be called appropriation.”

Designers such as Ford have long drawn inspiration from colours, fabrics and styles of various ethnicities. However, the industry has been heavily criticized by ‘wake’ types for copying and repackaging these traditional styles – a practice they say is exploitative.

French designer Isabel Marant was accused of stealing the Mexican community’s traditional dress in 2015, and Gucci faced backlash a year later for dressing a white model in a Sikh-style turban. Even the vaguely Asian-looking eye makeup has been done cried as racist by mainstream media.

“Being Creative Has Been Hard” Ford claimed. “In fact, being comfortable in today’s world has become very difficult, I think, because you have to rethink yourself.”

Ford is not the first person to publicly condemn “cancel culture” Later. “No one is allowed to speak their mind right now,” pop singer madonna V Magazine earlier this month. “No one is allowed to say what they really think about things for fear of being canceled … In a cancellation culture, disturbing the peace is probably an act of treason. We can start there, and Then we can talk about our work as artists.”

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