As a devoted William Morris fan, it’s been a delight — in part — to see Morris & Co prints brought to high streets across the world by H&M and rendered instafamous. Morris’ beautifully stylized depictions of nature are almost ubiquitous now.

These mediaeval-inspired designs were originally produced for Victorian wallpapers and home textiles, and their imposing yet delicate grandeur established Morris as one of the 19th century’s most famous textile designers. Now the popularity of this clothing collaboration has launched his work into the international spotlight. But just what tradition is being celebrated by H&M marketing his work as iconically British? Just what are we losing when we strip an artist’s work of its political context?

In addition to being a poet and designer, Morris was also a revolutionary and friend of Marx and Engels. He was an idealist who argued that craftwork and cooperation would make wage labour obsolete and, far from being simply the “iconic [nineteenth Century] British wallpaper and fabrics brand” which H&M proffers, Morris’s company was run on collective principles and managed by his daughter May at a time when women were rarely afforded such power.

Capitalism has done to William Morris what it always does best to political creatives: de-politicized his legacy for profit. Admittedly his household designs have long been mass-produced and on sale in museums and homeware shops. But at least the mugs, coasters and tea towels were affordable symbols of affinity with Morris. They were often marketed within the confines of the designs’ history and therefore, by and large, did not so fully erase his politics.

Just what are we losing when we strip an artist’s work of its political context?
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H&M presents his maximalist, repeated homages to the natural world as emblems of British tradition and nostalgia, when in fact Morris used mediaeval aesthetics not to celebrate Britain, but rather as a protest in advocating pre-industrial values. The press, however, has followed H&M’s marketing wash, instead of looking to Morris’s actual political legacy.

Vogue termed it “another British heritage brand”; The Guardian, too, echoed the “heritage” language.

How does capitalism’s own tradition of depoliticization play out when consumers are clothed in imagery taken out of context but also place, having originally been created to celebrate home?

H&M is curating a selective history which conjures nostalgia for a Victorian era of Empire. They launched their Morris and Co collaboration with a campaign video boasting a grainy, faux ’70s aesthetic.

Skinny white women prance through what looks like the Scottish Highlands, a brook and a cottage to their backs. They wear silk scarves, maxi dresses, pussy bow tops: demure looks paired with classic jumpers and jeans. Then, in a move which reinforced the capitalistic juggernaut that is H&M’s marketing, the company then gathered influencers for “paid partnerships” at the Morris-decorated mansion Standen House.

This manipulation fits within fashion’s long history with the commodification of radical craft and the history of Morris prints is simply a case study of how mainstream consumerism subsumes radical aesthetics.

Two previous uses of Morris designs for clothing aimed to pay tribute to his anti-establishment politics by linking them to subcultural styles.

The first was in the ’60s when autodidact designer Mary Quant — inspired by Mod fashion and the sexual revolution — made a mini-skirt suit in Morris’ “Marigold” print. The second instance occurred in 2017 when fashion house Loewe released a capsule collection approaching Morris through punk style. 

However, both fell into the consumer culture trap where radical social movements were transformed into fashionable commodities for companies to profit from.

The aesthetics of subcultures — like punk for example, which communicates a rejection of the status quo and an alternative belonging — also resided within the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement (of which Morris was a leader) in their distancing from Victorian production and values.

When aesthetics designed to be imbued with a certain meaning are donned as decontextualized fashion statements, those meanings are signaled without an actual affinity for movement, without a desire to belong or perpetuate the aesthetics’ accompanying ideals. This transformation — problematic in itself — is the process of reincorporation which leads to meanings being written over at best and bastardized or erased at worst.

William Morris’ creations were inspired by his belief in ordinary people’s value and rights
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Looking at the H&M collection, we can see nods to this lineage of aesthetic spin-offs, although they don’t directly mention the homage.

Their ’60s-esque mini dress uses the same print as Quant’s mini-skirt suit and their “Pimpernel” trouser suit recalls George Harrison in a “Golden Lily”-patterned blazer or John Lennon in “Chrysanthemum.” 

Morris’ politics inspired some subcultural affinity in the 20th Century but the sartorial trickle-down of these styles is mere commodification.

The anti-establishment message has disappeared when a mainstream brand like H&M calls him “iconic.” yet simultaneously ignores the radical politics he stood for. Indeed, when the company talks about “tradition,” they don’t even mean this tradition of subversive reuse. Instead, they invoke an abstract, white, and classist British status quo of countryside leisure.

Returning to the bigger picture of how fashion commodifies art, the connection between Morris’ radicalism and subcultural fashions like mods and punks is fitting — but not for the reasons the fashion houses intended.

Dick Hebdige, scholar of subcultural style, coined a term for the way capitalism seizes subversive aesthetics and turns them into a “fashion,” therefore making them apolitical, mainstream and profitable: “reincorporation.”

In his book Subcultures: the Meaning of Style he argues that youth movements develop their own style which puts across their criticisms of the existing order. The mainstream culture, however, incorporates their subversions within its own pre-existing world-view. In this way, the deviant meaning is lost. This sort of commodification happened to the styles of teddy boys, mods and rockers, hippies, skinheads, punks, etc., but it also happens today when far older styles with a political message are brought into vogue.

William Morris’s natural imagery — inspired by mediaeval styles because it sought to evade capitalism — now adorns the high street as season-appropriate florals.

Paying attention to the intended meanings behind art and design is important, especially when corporate fashion aims to depoliticize and commodify those visions’ intentions. Fashion is political, and the imagery it recycles, especially so.

William Morris’ creations were inspired by his belief in ordinary people’s value and rights; his words still appear on trade union banners today. Dismantling the homogenizing consumerism of fashion means celebrating the hidden radical histories erased by corporations, whether those be the politics of class, race, gender or sexuality.

So when you next see someone in that instafamous H&M x Morris & Co. maxi dress, they are — arguably — an inadvertent, living homage to a Victorian anti-Capitalist aesthetic and to those who sought revolutionary in the ’60s and ’70s.

There’s a thin line between buying pleasing patterns and communicating affinity of ideals, but if we celebrate and talk about these hidden histories we foster a critical eye and a celebration of the subversive role fashion should be allowed — and continue —to play.

Kim Kardashian And ‘Poor-nography’: The Dangers Of Celebrities Romanticizing Poverty

For privileged stars, it pays to pose as poor.

Photo via Unsplash, Flickr/Eva Rinaldi; Illustration by Maxine Builder

“Bad & Boujee” is how Kim Kardashian describes a photo of herself and friend Stephanie Shepherd sipping coffee from takeaway cups and pretending to eat cookies, apparently taken on a disposable camera but posted to Instagram. If they weren’t on Kim’s private jet, it’s the kind of photo you’d probably see on the Instagram feed of any young, fashionable creative trying to make it in a big city while holding down multiple jobs, maybe nannying in the day and bartending at night. The aesthetic is bad and boujee (or bougie, depending on whether you listen to Migos or not). It’s just that Kim is not.

Since her return to Instagram this year after taking a much-publicized break from social media, Kim has been embracing this new, grainy aesthetic, which falls under the umbrella of “poverty chic.” Kardashian has posted pictures of herself and her family in a home that’s sparsely furnished with grimy walls, photos of Kanye eating cereal, and even one of herself cooking. These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious. That home turns out to be music producer Rick Rubin’s house, and the meal Kim’s preparing is actually a delivery service Atkins meal.

These seemingly mundane scenes are a jarring departure from the usually glossy, lavish lifestyle we’re used to seeing Kim boasting — but they’re just as carefully staged and almost entirely fictitious.

Kim’s not the only member of the Kardashian clan jumping on the poverty chic bandwagon. Little sister Kylie Jenner has been spotted rocking the ultimate rural poor emulation trend from the ’00s : the Von Dutch trucker hat. Other wealthy celebrities, too, have been posting photos to Instagram of themselves acting “poor.” Vogue Australia’s latest shoot with Selena Gomez, for example, features the former Disney star posing in a run-down home. Supermodel Bella Hadid has posted a photo of herself gone full aughts-era mallrat with an ironic caption, “pinkys up.” On Instagram, Hailey Baldwin posed with McDonald’s food, calling it “#essentials.”

The question isn’t whether or not poverty chic is making a comeback — it’s why.

Much the same as cultural appropriation, poverty chic is an act of “cherry-picking.” As Refinery29’s Leeann Duggan writes, “It glibly looks at the world with a purely visual eye, and refuses to consider meaning.” The celebrities and fashion elites flaunting these signifiers of poverty have likely never lived through the abjection they’re mimicking.

Why Should You Become An Establishment Member For $5 A Month?

This fascination with the lives of those less fortunate is nothing new for the rich and famous. Christian Dior’s spring-summer 2000 haute couture collection, designed by John Galliano, is often considered the birthplace of “homeless chic” in fashion. The collection was a mish-mash of ripped fishnet, belts made of found items, and scrunched-up garments in newspaper print, all twisted together in a futuristic, Dickensian style. At the time, it was harshly criticized by his peers and the media, in much the same way Kardashian’s photos are facing a backlash now. Galliano called his detractors “bourgeois people, condescending and smug,” excepting himself from actually being bourgeois — as Kardashian is currently attempting to with her Instagram pictures.

The rest of the mid-00s were bombarded with images of waifish celebrities dressed as “bag ladies,” and fashion culture insistently “cool-ified” the bottom echelons of the socio-economic spectrum. In 2010, Vivienne Westwood sent a whole tattered menswear collection down the runway. Photographer Miles Aldridge has deified the homeless in his work. The Olsen Twins dressed like homeless people through the mid-’00s. Erin Wasson heralded dressing like a homeless person as the pinnacle of style. Tyra Banks had the models in Cycle 10 of America’s Next Top Model pose as sexy homeless, while the Sartorialist made a model of an actual homeless person. Terry Richardson went on to capitalize on all of this, creating that instantly recognizable visual aesthetic — celebrities shot in high contrast images, as if on disposable camera, against a sparse white background, often with dirty or unmade hair, simple clothes (jeans, t-shirts, in lingerie, or shirtless), smoking (both cigarettes and marijuana), blowing gum bubbles or wearing hipster-style reading glasses, caught in “natural” off-guard poses, capturing the way the rich imagine the less privileged should look.

The propensity to “dress homeless” eventually disappeared along with the global recession, fashion’s reclamation of ’80s “bodycon” and, ironically, the beginning of Kim Kardashian’s rise to pop-culture icon status. But almost a decade later, here we are again, asking ourselves: What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor? Why are celebrities once again looking for dilapidated environments in which to pose in grungy, mismatched, oversized streetwear? Why are they eschewing the signifiers of their “success” — ostentatious jewelry, hero handbags, and Michelin starred restaurants — to hang out at Dave and Busters?

What is it that drives the upper class to aspire to look poor?

Our return to this trope of “acting poor” has a lot to do with the romanticization of poverty, projecting a purity onto the poor that the rich just can’t seem to buy. For Kardashian, the turn to this new aesthetic might be reactive. Following the robbery in Paris in 2016 which saw her held at gunpoint over around $10 million in diamonds, many commentators saw her lavish displays of wealth as courting that exact sort of trouble. Downplaying her wealth, then, might be a form of repentance, where she actively attempts to distance herself from the notion that her excessive having makes her deserving of being taken from.

In an article addressing the phenomenon of poverty chic from 2002, writer Zoe William posits in The Guardian that the notion of poor equating to “cool” is “timeless.” This, it is argued, is rooted in religion, and the core “notion of the poor being inherently pious.” The poor, unlike the privileged, are exonerated from guilt, something the upper class rich are eternally shouldered with. This condescending idea of the “pious poor” might be what’s propelling the currency of struggle in the modern climate.

The glorification of poverty is intrinsic to the wider perception that this generation’s trendmakers have never actually endured any kind of palpable struggle. Taylor Swift’s girl squad and the Kardashian family’s Instagram photos are too clean and neat, and all celebrities can do to earn “authenticity” is to co-opt the visual signifiers of struggle — a yellow stained wall, blurry photos, ripped jeans and dirty hair. Essentially, the socioeconomic barriers that preclude people like Kardashian from being viewed as “genuine” or “empathetic” can’t be dismantled. The best she and her peers can do is to attempt to appear like the every person.

But the rich acting poor isn’t emulation or flattery. Indeed, the aesthetic Kardashian is glamorizing is a daily reality for many — often born out of cyclical patterns of institutional bias, social stigma, cultural abuse, and a whole system that is rigged to ensure that those poor stay poor, while the rich jealously guard their privilege. As July Westhale, writing for The Establishment, points out, many of the appropriations that take place — from Instagram-friendly hipster bars promoting trailer park aesthetics to preposterous lifestyle trends for wealthy young people extolling the virtues of “minimalist” living — are often things for which the poor are scrutinized and belittled. We celebrate the performance of poverty, but we demonize the the poor, and according to Westhale, because of the “systemic oppression that makes it difficult for them to have the same access to upward mobility, [the poor] are considered socially uncouth and lazy, while white anarchists…are praised for their radically subversive actions.”

Whether it’s the burden of an unfair tax system, the Republican attack on health care including the defunding of Planned Parenthood, or the onerous user-pays education system, poverty isn’t really a choice, but something that’s been foisted on the working class — and disproportionately on communities of color — in America and across the globe since time immemorial. The rich are happy to perpetuate dangerous stereotypes of the poor for their own gratification, but when it comes to the actual poor, judgment abounds. What Kardashian and her peers have therefore failed to understand is that just because they choose to romanticize poverty, that choice isn’t a universal reality.

The Troubling Trendiness Of Poverty Appropriation

Dressing in shabby chic and posing against the background of a dilapidated domestic environment suggests that despite unknowable wealth, these rich have been humbled — something Kardashian seems adamant on proving post-robbery. Writing in Salon, Brook Bolen suggests poverty chic is an attempt at “enlightenment” where those performing it show how they “pared down possessions to live more simply and happily.”

Celebrities are attempting to disavow themselves of dirty words like “privilege” and “entitlement,” and mainstream aesthetic culture, once again, is drawn to the latest iteration of “slumming it.” In a climate where even a billionaire businessman was able to win a presidential campaign by positioning himself as a man of the people, it pays to pose as poor.

It might be an outward projection of humility, or a grasping at some kind of inner solace against the guilt of privilege, but either way, for Kim Kardashian and her peers, lavish displays of wealth have been sidelined as alienating. Instead, they’re standing on the precipice of the echo chamber where rich people go to shout, “Hey, I’m just like you!”

But in the attempt to create something “authentic” by embracing “realness,” Kardashian and her peers have created an incongruity that’s difficult to witness. It’s a modern absurdist art form in which the counterintuitive goal is self-aggrandizing through the craven mirroring of “humble” subjects.

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