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Top Runway Faux Pas
7. When Karl Lagerfeld embroidered phrases from the Koran in grey pearls on a black bustier, worn by a beaming, bodacious Claudia Schiffer for his 1994 catwalk show, he thought that he was appropriating an Arabic love poem. Members of the Indonesian Muslim Scholars Council, an organization of clerics in Jakarta, spotted the difference and did not reciprocate Lagerfeld's intended sweet sentiment. So, Lagerfeld was compelled to make a public apology to the Muslim community, destroy the dresses, all catwalk photos, and the photo negatives. If only he'd known someone with a tattoo in a foreign language to tell him that its worth the trouble to get a translator.
Gerard Julien, AFP / Getty Images
8. In 1998, British/Turkish Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan presented 12 models in a row, each only wearing a chador ranging from chin- to floor-length. Though a few models' bodies were nude, the solemnity and simplicity of Chalayan's overt political statement turned the show into a powerful piece of performance art. Chalayan's own cultural investment in the topic and his eloquent discussion of the issues surrounding Muslim womens' rights guaranteed that his show was taken seriously.
9. Ann Sofie Back's Fall/Winter 2008 schadenfreude collection struck raw nerves by playfully ribbing the readers of celebrity scandal sheets. The show itself focused on sullied, morning-after anti-glam—G-strings wrapped around models’ thighs, T-shirts with cubist patterns inspired by pixelated crotch shots, and oversize men’s suit jackets slung over slender shoulders. Some loudly decried it as a "date rape chic" collection. But others got the joke and just blushed sheepishly while stuffing their copies of Heat! deeper into their IT bags.
Natalie Lagneau, Catwalking / Getty Images
Ana Finel Honigman is a New York-born and Berlin-based art and fashion critic, curator and Ph.D. candidate at Oxford University.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Ana Finel Honigman is a New York-born and Berlin-based art and fashion critic, curator and PhD candidate at Oxford University.
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Ana Finel Honigman is a New York-born and Berlin-based art and fashion critic, curator and PhD candidate at Oxford University.
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Ana Finel Honigman is a New York-born and Berlin-based art and fashion critic, curator and PhD candidate at Oxford University.
The number one faux pas? The fact these heartless designers (except, of course, Stella McCartney) are using real, not faux, fur. That is--or should be--criminal.
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