“Green Is the New Black”: Celebrity Chic and the “Green” Commodity Fetish

Abstract

In the April 2006 “Green” issue of Vanity Fair, the editor, Graydon Carter, declared “Green Is the New Black.” Fashion designers, such as Giorgio Armani, Oscar de la Renta, Stella McCartney, Betsey Johnson, and Todd Oldman are creating ecofashions for the runways, boutiques, mass markets, and especially for celebrities. Current eco-conscious designers create ecofashions far different than the stereotypical images of “eco-dress,” such as rope sandals, tie-dye T-shirt, and hemp cargo pants established in the 1960s and often associated with the Hippie subculture that represented anti-fashion and empowered the wearer visual cues of his/her sociopolitical ideals and values associated with animal and human rights, and environmental issues. As a result, stereotypical eco-dress functioned as a “green” commodity fetish imbued with “magical” value that reflected the eco-conscious lifestyle.The introduction of current ecofashions challenges these understood stereotypical images and identities, especially among celebrities. Eco-conscious celebrities actively seek out ecofashions that are consistent with their “green” lifestyles while non-verbally communicating their cultivated tastes and styles. Although sharing many of the same eco-conscious ideals, these new ecofashions do not share the same non-verbal communications as those garments worn in previous decades. By donning these “green” or ecofashions celebrities have depoliticized highly charged sociopolitical issues, and as a result, ecofashion communicates only the aesthetic of the wearer. This article unpacks past eco-dress choices by deconstructing how the stereotypical eco-dress functioned as a commodity fetish within Western industrial capitalist society. It also analyzes the changing “magical” meanings and values of the commodity fetishism associated with current ecofashions, giving particular attention to the new non-verbal communications and identities associated with ecofashions.