https://www.notjustalabel.com/editorial/fashions-troubled-mind
“If you are not a good bullfighter, don’t enter the arena. Fashion is a sport now: You have to run.” Rick Owens also agrees, “I don’t really see a problem: I tend to look at these things as evolutionary. I feel stimulated… and busy hands are happy hands.”
As Justine Picardie, a biographer of Coco Chanel, once said, “People often think about fashion as if it’s just about the surface of things. But there’s often a very dark side to the life of a designer. The reason clothes are potent is because of what they are covering up.”
“The fashion industry focuses on the superficial,” Dr. Van Dahlen says. “It’s about what we wear, how we look, how we act. People who have any vulnerabilities in regards to value, worth, and identity are at a greater risk of experiencing significant anxiety and depression in the face of repeated rejection, competition, and sense of disappointment.” To her knowledge, there have not been any thorough medical studies done on the effects of these types of pressures within the industry, but she does believe that “perhaps those who are working in this sector have specific strengths and skills that allow them to withstand the pressures, so doing some research to find out how those individuals cope and thrive, what works for them, and how they care for themselves would help lead us in the right direction and help us to support one another in more constructive ways.”
Fashion has long been protected by the idea of the creative visionary and this perhaps has offered the industry an allowance to behave unethically or simply badly. But in truth, very little of this poor or bad behaviour these days in the fashion sector – or indeed any sector – has to do with creativity.
In April, The Business of Fashion published a report which called the teaching methods at Antwerp’s revered Royal Academy of Fine Art into question. In response to this, Dazed and Confused ran a piece entitled “Opening up the conversation about mental health in fashion”. Both articles outlined suggestions of rigorous standards, immense stress, drug abuse, exhaustion and intense workloads. Suggestions like these do not feel unrealistic in either environment.
“through an intensive personal guidance by the team of teachers, they are continuously driven to push their limits. That way they are…able to maximise their abilities, ideas and imaginations.”
Many believe the Academy’s teaching methods have created a toxic environment, with students competing with each other to survive in a “Pop Idol”-style setting where Van Beirendonck plays Simon Cowell, ultimately deciding who stays and who goes. “This element of rejection is something I can imagine that some teachers may play into,” said one graduate whose overall experience at the school was positive. “It comes down to power and extends to politics, extends to what is out there right now that is surfacing.”
But it’s not simply personal remarks and off-colour comments that accusers say diminish the confidence and mental health of students. The intensity of the programme and workload often causes them to break down physically, too, with some turning to drugs — in particular speed and cocaine — in order to power through.
https://indie-mag.com/2018/07/fashion-design-students-mental-health/
IT’S TOO MUCH, ALL AT ONCE
“In industry you have individuals who solely pattern make or sew or design, who are part of a team that work together. But in university you have to design, illustrate, pattern-make, sew, keep documentation portfolios, write essays etc, all at the same time and by yourself. It’s extremely stressful and drained me of creativity.”
The idea that creativity and brilliance are naturally linked to depression and mental illness has been echoed for centuries, but too often there is a tendency to blame the archetype of the troubled artistic genius without recognising the sheer pressure they were under – from CEOs demanding increased sales, from the press, and from themselves. But it’s also too simplistic to cast them as ‘victims’ driven mad by a cruel and ruthless industry – according to charity MIND, one in four people in the UK will experience mental health problems over the course of a year. It’s a problem that affects people from all walks of life, but it’s one we still struggle to talk about. Surely fashion played a complex, consuming role in these people’s lives, but simply blaming a system for what happened to them absolves responsibility: if those who work in this industry don’t have the power to change it, who does?http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/23582/1/mental-health-in-fashion-it-s-time-to-talk