Ranking the Most Controversial Fashion Week Moments Over the Years

Sometimes when models walk the runway, hijinks ensue.

Some designers take it upon themselves to showcase what has for decades been considered unconventional in the fashion world; different body types, for example. Others use the opportunity to not only showcase chic styles, but to make a political or social statement.

But sometimes models go rogue and do it themselves. Just last week, during Gucci’s show at Milan Fashion Week, models were propelled along a conveyor belt in fashionable straightjackets and one of them, Ayesha Tan Jones, staged a one-woman protest. She held up her hands, which bore the words, “Mental health is not fashion.”

“As an artist and model who has experienced my own struggles with mental health, as well as family members and loved ones who have been affected by depression, anxiety, bipolar and schizophrenia, is hurtful and insensitive for a major fashion house such as Gucci to use this imagery as a concept for a fleeting fashion moment,” she said on Instagram.

“It is in bad taste for Gucci to use the imagery of strait jackets and outfits alluding to mental patients, while being rolled out on a conveyor belt as if a piece of factory meat,” she added. “Presenting these struggles as props for selling clothes in today’s capitalist climate is vulgar, unimaginative and offensive to the millions of people around the world affected by these issues.”

Gucci confirmed the protest was unplanned and said in a statement, “Uniforms, utilitarian clothes, normative dress, including straitjackets, were included in the #GucciSS20 fashion show as the most extreme version of a uniform dictated by society and those who control it. These clothes were a statement for the fashion show and will not be sold.”

See the top 10 most controversial Fashion Week moments over the years, ranked:

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