7 Times Common Worker Realness Was Served on the Runway
New York City’s sanitation worker uniforms are getting a fierce update this New York Fashion Week. According to the New York Post, designer and Kanye West collaborator Heron Preston is joining forces with the Department of Sanitation to create a collection made out of its workers’ uniforms, reimagined into a chic offering of unisex duds. Tickets to the show are going for $2,030, but the proceeds are going toward a good cause, “a new foundation for New York’s garbage workers and an ‘educational museum’ that will feature artifacts and sanitation equipment dating back to the late 1800s.”
Fashion often gets inspired by the regular, everyday workers (like garbage collectors), and it has brought that inspiration to the runway. Below, seven other labels that made uniforms high fashion.
Moschino spring 2015
Moschino’s spring 2015 collection was just about everywhere, but not everyone was feeling the McDonald’s-inspired threads designer Jeremy Scott put forth. Some took issue with the designer reimagining the fast food chain’s uniforms into pricey “it” pieces for the elite, while people who work in fast food can’t even afford such expensive gear. “For people working in the highly paid fashion world to think it’s ‘trendy’ to wear clothes inspired by the uniforms we put on every day to feed our kids, or to buy a designer bag that is a parody of the meals we serve to earn enough money just to pay our bills, well, it just makes me sad,” former McDonald’s employee Mia Brusendorff told the Daily Mail . “I couldn’t buy one of these Moschino purses even if I wanted to.”
Chanel spring 2016
For its spring 2016 show, Chanel created an airline-themed runway. Male models wore navy blue suits and wheeled along luggage, looking like handsome pilots or flight attendants.
Balmain fall 2016 menswear
Fashion often gets inspired by military uniforms, and Balmain’s fall 2016 menswear collection had plenty of pieces looking like they came straight off the set of a Baz Luhrmann period drama.
Parsons senior fashion show 2013, Yunxiang (Sharon) Zhou
According to the Daily Beast, Zhou looked to “workers’ garments and tools” to inform her senior effort. “I incorporated the long-established details of workers’ uniforms, from office workers, construction crews, hospital personnel, farmers, and those in the military.”
Vetements spring 2016
The ultra-hip French label sent its models down the runway in DHL T-shirts that read less like a high-fashion delivery guy and more like, well, a regular one.
Project Runway’s postal uniform challenge, Season 1
The reality TV competition challenged its contestants to reimagine the U.S. Postal Service uniforms into something both fashionable and functional.
Louis Vuitton spring 2008
Hello, nurse! We might consider switching professions if the uniforms looked like what Marc Jacobs put forth for Vuitton’s spring 2008 effort. Changing a bedpan never looked so glamorous.
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