Fashion is fun, but it has a dark side. The industry has been riddled with misogyny, racism, and even homophobia despite it being so famously associated with the LGBTQ community. Many of the world's most innovative names in fashion, including founders of some of the biggest brands operating today, have ties to Nazi Germany.
One could say, "well that is in the past," but is it? When designers like John Galliano make anti-Semitic statements, should we just forget Christian Dior's problematic past? What about Dolce and Gabbana throwing the LGBTQ community under the bus? Ralph Lauren's alleged appropriation? These are not pieces of ancient history, although, there are plenty of problematic stories within the history of fashion too.
9 Coco Chanel
Many of the biggest names in the fashion industry had ties to Nazi Germany and were run by vocal antisemites. Coco Chanel was not just pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler, she worked for him too. Chanel's ties to the Nazi Party have been well known for a while, but her official position as a spy came out in 2011 thanks to the book Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War. She also had something else in common with Hitler, they were both drug addicts. Hitler used amphetamines before every speech and had an assistant called the "minister of injections." Chanel was a morphine addict.
8 Ralph Lauren
Although less problematic than being connected to the most genocidal political regime of 20th-century Europe, mogul Ralph Lauren has had to apologize once or twice for perpetuating racism in the fashion industry and for cultural appropriation. In 2014, journalist and commentator Bill Moyers wrote a piece about Ralph Lauren's "racist" ad campaign that used images of captive and Anglified Native Americans. Six years later, Lauren would be called out in another scandal for using a famous black fraternity's symbols without their consent.
7 John Galliano
Galliano was riding high as the designer of Christian Dior until it all came crashing down in 2011. The designer made a series of dangerously antisemitic comments during a horrific, and per Parisian law, illegal antisemitic rant in 2011. After losing his job he tried to apologize and save face, he even wore a suspiciously Jewish-looking hat and haircut that offended his detractors even more. The scandal had an upside though, it gave Conan O'Brien and his best writer, Brian Stack, material for some of Conan's funniest sketches for his TBS show.
6 Christian Dior
Sadly, Galliano was just carrying on the tradition of anti-semitism in fashion. Like Coco Chanel (and too many others on this list as one will see) had direct ties to Hitler's Germany. Dior never professed explicitly antisemitic views, but before launching his line he was an employee of Lucien Lelong, where he worked for the wives and mistresses of high-ranking Nazi officials. Some in Dior's family, like his niece, were adamantly pro-Hitler, and some, like his sister, were members of the French Resistance. Dior never took a hard stance, but that is almost worse in a way. To quote Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Related: Who Were Dior's Celebrity Spokesmodels Before Johnny Depp?
5 Hugo Boss
Boss might be the most hardcore Nazi on this list. He was not shy about his support for the Furher. He joined the Nazi Party as early as 1931, designing the outfits for the Hitler Youth and allegedly the Gestapo as well. His fashion line also used labor from Nazi prisoners, in other words, Jewish people and POWs. The company issued a formal apology in 2011, surely that will make up for supporting the slaughter of 11 million people right?
4 Louis Vuitton
Marshal Philippe Pétain was the puppet leader Nazi Germany left in charge of France after the German invasion. There was only one fashion house authorized to operate in Hotel Du Park, the proto-capital for Petain's Vichy Regime. As one might have guessed by now, it was Louis Vuitton. The popular designer of leather goods made products that glorified Petain, including several busts that were excluded from the company's official business records. Could it be they were ashamed? Let's hope they were. It gets worse, Vuitton's son was a well-known friend of the Gestapo and was one of the first French civilians to receive honors from Hitler for his loyalty to the Third Reich.
3 Cristobal Balenciaga
The Balenciaga name is virtually synonymous with controversy. In late 2022, the fashion house went viral in the worst way for its ad campaign that involved small children in S&M gear. That was far from the first time Balenciaga did something so offensive. Its founder, Cristobal Balenciaga, worked personally with the family of Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator and a close ally to Adolph Hitler. Balenciaga designed multiple dresses for Franco's wife, and he even came out of retirement to make a wedding dress for Franco's granddaughter.
One thing can be said to Balenciaga's credit, he did stand up to Hitler when he refused the Fuhrer's order to move his fashion house from Paris to Berlin. It's not like he joined the resistance, but at least he wasn't designing uniforms for the Hitler youth. Still, working for Franco is not something to be taken lightly, the Spanish authoritarian is responsible for at least 30,000 deaths.
2 Related: Here's How Much Money Kim Kardashian Earned From Balenciaga Over The YearsTyra Banks
Let's leave World War II behind and return to the modern day. Although fashion has gone through some changes, many problematic aspects remain. Racism is still rampant in fashion, and sadly it is perpetuated even by models of color. Tyra Banks has been called out for some allegedly racist games on her show Americas Next Top Model that involved blackface. Banks has stood up to bigotry in fashion though, she held a contestant's feet to the fire for blatant homophobia, and Banks has also addressed racism in fashion, as well as the trauma that women's bodies face in the business. Does that makeup for the alleged racism in her show though?
1 Dolce And Gabbana
The owners and operators of D&C, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, are both out-of-the-closet gay men. But they still threw LGBTQ people under the bus in 2015 when they came out against marriage equality for gay people. They also came out against gay couples adopting children. The pair enraged many of their previously most loyal customers, including rock legend Elton John who called for an immediate boycott of all D&G goods. One might wonder how a gay person could be homophobic. Well, the lesson here is simple. Identity is not solidarity. A person can still identify as an oppressed identity, while still being an agent of oppression.
