Grace moment of inspiration vs. pressure on creation at a pathogenic rhythm for designers, manufacturers and producers; aesthetic perfectionism imposed on models vs. realism; promotion of singularity vs. mechanisms of addiction for the consumers… the fashion industry is particularly exposed to mental health issues, which impact a vast value chain.
In pre-opening of the 1st Paris Fashion Week of 2025, the Who’s Next trade show was held from January 18 to 20. Within its IMPACT & Neonyt Paris space, dedicated to innovation for fashion and sustainable creation, I was invited to speak at the conference organized by Florian Müller: “Breaking the Cycle: Ethical Demands, Consumer Behavior, and Mental Health in Fashion”, alongside Kiko Hirakawa, model and entreprener and Serge Carreira, Director of Emerging Brands Initiative at Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.
Florian Müller is the founder of Mental Health in Fashion campaign , an initiative that promotes awareness and creates a precious safe space to tackle this crucial topic and introduce it more widely into the fashion conversations.
With the POV of a critical of both aesthetic and sociological messages of fashion, and passionate advocate for environmental and social positive impact in fashion and luxury, I’ve attempted to offer some insights into the social and cultural narratives shaping fashion.
From the genesis and some fundamentals of mental health in fashion, the psychological and emotional relationship that we nourish with clothing, to questioning the different layers of responsibility, including us… I distilled a few thoughts, figures and insights for the whole industry to engage towards better mental health in fashion.
The genesis
Fashion is a platform for contemporary identities, the body, the image, the status.
Fashion is not clothing, it is just a word to signify its variations.
Clothing is more about need and fashion about desire.
The furious desire for a piece fills us with personal and collective stories… then we can fall out of love.
As you know, Sustainable Development has 3 pilars: Economic, Environmental (the most common in most of people’s mind) and Social. When we talk about mental health within the scope of Sustainable Fashion, we’re talking about this last pilar, the human one, who addresses issues such as diversity and inclusion, wellness, human rights, safety, empowerment, health, mental health and more.
Indeed, the future of fashion in a “responsible” standard is not defined only in the design of sustainable clothing but begins in the interconnections between those who make it, who wear it, who embody it: the brands / employers, the employees (from the designer to the manufacture textile worker, freelance, etc.), the consumers, and the students too. So, talking about mental health in fashion implies this whole value chain.
The particularly high exposure of this sector can be explained by different factors. Factory of beauty, desire and dreams, the pressure and culture of perfectionism of this industry leaves no tolerance for failure. The competition and fast cycles amplify the mental fatigue. The fear of rejection, physical pressure and obsession with appearance can generate eating disorders and impact the self-esteem for both models and the public.
Fashion and mental health have a problematic past
Mental health issues are too often associated with creativity. Indeed, artists and creatives are 25% more likely to suffer from mental health problems, study finds.
According to Jean-Victor Blanc in an interview for Le Figaro “It’s a real subject in the industry”. The psychiatrist at Saint Antoine hospital in Paris is specialized (among other things) in the addictions of the millennial generation and patients with bipolar disorders. “Particularly among fashion students, who still imagine today that you have to be very bad mentally to be a good designer [or to suffer to make it in fashion, Editor’s note]. The myth of the tortured creative genius is still all too present.”
When the topic is mentioned we all have in mind “The evil wears Prada”, it’s engraved in the collective subconscious since 2006. More tragic events sadly marked the history of fashion, such as the premature loss of genius Alexander McQueen who decided to end his life in 2010; or even John Galliano’s breakdown in 2011 due to his vicious cycle of pathological work rhythm and addictions…
In 2019, the Gucci show in Milan Fashion Week opened with a series of models wearing a fashion version of straitjackets. In an unplanned protest, one of the models, Ayesha Tan-Jones, held up their hands on which the words “mental health is not fashion” had been written. The day after, they posted on their Instagram feed the statement: “Presenting these struggles as props for selling clothes in today’s capitalist climate is vulgar, unimaginative and offensive to the millions of people around the world affected by these issues.”
The industry can’t ignore that anymore, and must implement actions, for brand image/employer brand image, consistency of ethics, and business reasons.
With the right conversations, the right shift can happen!
Some initiatives are already at work.
Today, employees around the world are taking mental health seriously. According to a 2022 survey by market research and analytics firm The Harris Poll, 52% of employees consider mental health awareness in the workplace to be « very important » to them and 81% of working adults agree that employers have an obligation to prioritize the mental health of their employees. However, 77% of them say that the subject is not covered enough.
Some houses, notably where I had the chance to work, have already taken action by implementing rules as basic as the ban on organizing meetings after 5 p.m. and on fridays, the use of the internal chat only during hours office, very inexpensive (or even free) access to practices that heal through relaxation and reduce stress such as sport and yoga… up to the implementation of an inclusion and adaptability policy for invisible disabilities which can also be a source of unexpressed discomfort (bipolarity, dyslexia, cognitive disorders …), internal days dedicated to mental health awareness and education for the employees, free access to psychologist etc.
Balenciaga support National Children’s Alliance around 3 main pillars and actions: Mental Health, helping children heal from trauma, provide education for Balenciaga employees about child protection and actions, raise public awareness on child abuse and protection.
The well-known NGO Fashion Revolution promoting the respect of labours rights and transparency all along the fashion supply chain, also contributed to improve the health and mental health conditions of textile workers thanks to concrete actions. They highly contributed on the adoption of the duty of vigilance law, the International Accor for health and safety, they created the fashion transparency index, an opensource tool accessible to any fashion brand who want to be more transparent about their social and environmental efforts .
Fashion Revolution also develops initiatives and researches exploring the concept of a Wellbeing Wardrobe, also promoted via an Instagram serie… to name a few game-changing actions.
On the consumer side, speech began to be freed (or at least accelerated) after COVID and the subject became demonized thanks to new more realistic representations in pop culture.
Following the public confession of american singer Selena Gomez on Instagram about her bipolar disorder, the support was unfailing. Other Gen Z icons, such as Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Bella Hadid, Harry Styles, Kendall Jenner, talked publicly, without taboo, about their mental health and anxieties.
The popularity of #mentalhealth on TikTok demonstrates the progress of mentalities.
The figures speak for themselves: posts related to mental health with the hashtags #MentalHealth, #SelfCare or #MentalHealthAwareness have respectively garnered more than 109 billion, 50 billion and 25 billion views to date on the Chinese social network. In France, the #MentalHealth trend already has more than 724 million views, and #MentalHealthAide more than 2 million.
Fashion and creative industries could be powerful vectors of questioning and awareness: universal, creative, positive… It can leverage on its power of communication for a positive influence, to raise awareness (rather than influence more consumption for instance).
The same way as fashion industry can rely on the power of its communication platform to switch from influencing consumption to inspiring sustainable actions, the same can be true for mental health conversations.
Stay tuned for Part II…
More from Analyse
Mental Health in Fashion Part II – Can our love/hate relationship with fashion evolve into mindful and responsible behavior?
Grace moment of inspiration vs. pressure on creation at a pathogenic rhythm for designers, manufacturers and producers; aesthetic perfectionism imposed …
