Is Acne’s feminist fashion statement just a pose?

“Radical feminist”. “Woman Power”. “Gender Equality”. Acne Studio’s autumn unisex collection, including sweaters and scarves adorned with feminist messages, have hit the stores. The style is a bit hooligan, as if to imply that these are tough guys fighting for a good cause – like the football fan-like scarf that says “Gender Equality”. The fashion critic community doesn’t seem too impressed. “Wearing something that says you’re what a feminist looks like does not necessarily make you a feminist”, says The Muse writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Swedish fashion critic Agnes Grefberg Braunerhielm calls it “a pose”.
But Salka Hallström Bornold, fashion expert and Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Form, doesn’t see the problem. “It may be a lukewarm gesture in the Swedish fashion crowd where feminism is not controversial at all”, she says. “But then, nobody should expect Acne to take on seriously controversial issues – it’s just a fashion brand. To promote gender equality is of course to play it safe, a universal thing that the average Acne fan can subscribe to. That is, depending on what part of the world we’re talking about. There are several corners of Europe where statements like these can make a difference, in a normalisation process, from Germany to Britain and Spain. We will probably see these garments on the badass fashion guys in Milan, which would be a treat in itself.”