The Diet Prada effect: ‘Call-out culture’ in the contemporary fashionscape

Abstract

Fashion criticism has found a new democratic platform in this technetronic age that has been impacted by the emergence of online ‘call-out culture’, a cultural phenomenon born of this digital age. Independent voices are finding traction within the famously hermetic fashion industry who are holding fashion designers, marketers, editors and all those gatekeepers in between, accountable not only for copycat fashion products but also for racist and bigoted appropriations that appear in campaigns and editorials. In examining ‘call-out culture’ in the fashion industry this article will extrapolate on how and why these cultural phenomena have gained traction in relation to the contemporary fashion industry and what this means for the future of the industry. I do so through the wider contextualization of looking at ideas of authenticity and transparency, effects of social media, and the role of cultural criticism in fashion. The methodology utilized in this article is in the form of the close analysis of two case studies, the independent fashion critic sites Diet Prada and The Fashion Law, which have both gained traction in the past two years for their unbiased and unrelenting agenda to call out fashion’s indiscretions.