Displaying an all-white straitjacket and pants ensemble, model Ayesha Tan-Jones, chosen to walk the ramp for a segment featuring “utilitarian uniforms,” flashed her palms to the camera to show the phrase – “Mental health is not fashion.”
A straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with long sleeves and is designed to restrain people who may cause harm to themselves or others.
According to Gucci’s Instagram post, the straitjacket was aimed to “represent how through fashion, power is exercised over life, to eliminate self-expression.”
However, Tan-Jones disagreed with the use of the jackets. Without revealing any names, in an Instagram post Jones noted many of the other Gucci models who featured in the show felt “just as strongly” as she did about this depiction of straitjackets.
Taking to Instagram, Jones, who herself claims to have suffered mental issues, shared a picture of herself showing her protest message along with a clip of herself.
“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, it is hurtful and insensitive for a major fashion house such as Gucci to use this imagery as a concept for a fleeting fashion moment,” Jones wrote.
“It is in bad taste for Gucci to use the imagery of straitjackets and outfits alluding to mental patients, while being rolled out on a conveyor belt as if a piece of factory meat,” she stated.
Her posts gathered overwhelming responses from people who praised her bravery and demeaned Gucci’s insensitivity towards mental health patients.
“Find it difficult to see that it took getting all the way to the runway before anyone called out how insensitive this ‘show’ concept would be, thank you @ayeshatanjones for saying how it really is,” a comment read.
Titled “New Forms of Subjection,” the show intended to explore if fashion can be a means of resistance.
According to the report, Gucci told the New York Times that because of the show’s theme, it felt that Tan-Jones should be permitted to protest.