When Karl Lagerfeld’s pre-fall 2014 collection for Chanel featured models wearing Native American-inspired headdresses, it certainly raised some eyebrows and some ire, but there was also a sense that because it was Karl, it was luxury fashion, and not as offensive as when Urban Outfitters or Karlie Kloss featured similar headgear. So Karl remained pretty much unscathed.
Now Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck (who showed his menswear collection today in Paris) is here to remind us all that the headdress thing was a big faux pas. For his latest menswear collection, he sent a model down the runway wearing a cartoonishly large feathered headpiece adorned with a middle finger and the words STOP RACISM scrawled across it. Just call it the runway version of a subtweet. We get you loud and clear, Walter, but will everyone else?
