Fernando Lindez / A career in pics

The 1993 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as ‘any act that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women’ and includes threats or deprivation of liberty.

Women have been historically and socially disadvantaged, relegated, silenced and turned into instruments of a patriarchal society that has considered them inferior to men, their property or mere reproductive instruments. Over the centuries, this has meant that all areas to which they have been relegated or of interest to them have also been considered frivolous and insubstantial. And so it was with the world of fashion until a new generation of women (and also men who knew how to see beyond it) turned it into a tool for empowerment and expression, which has helped them to see themselves as what they are: human beings in their own right.

To cope with a horrible reality, women have relied on the world of fashion to express themselves, which has given them the strength to live the lives they wanted to live. A contemporary example: The women of the Woman Life Freedom movement in Iran make taking off the headscarf that the authoritarian Islamic regime that governs their country a symbol of freedom, and dressing in jeans and bright colours a way of rebelling against the regime that wants them locked up at home, submissive and complacent. One of its best-known representatives, Masih Alinejad, always wears a flower in her hair to symbolise her revolt, an adornment she would never be allowed to wear in Iran. This journalist lives in the United States, is under death threats and never stops raising her voice on behalf of the oppressed women of her country. Others were not lucky enough to escape, like Mahsa/Zhina Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was kidnapped and beaten to death by the Iranian morality police for walking around Tehran with her brother without wearing the veil. The two are an extreme example of the lengths to which attempts to police women's attire can go, something they have consistently had to contend with: from the leers for showing their legs as skirts became shorter during the 20th century to discussions of what constitutes appropriate cleavage for a professional woman, women's bodies and how they choose to dress them have always been a battleground.

Cocó Chanel dressed women in clothes considered masculine. May Quant shortened skirts and allowed them to show their legs. Elsa Schiaparelli turned women's bodies into works of art with her surrealist designs. Madeleine Vionnet invented a type of cut, the bias cut, that highlighted their natural curves without the need for corsets and peekaboos. Vivianne Westwood set fashion conventions ablaze and gave them freedom tinged with punk. They all helped reclaim women's bodies not as objects of veneration and mannequins to be manipulated and dressed according to a rigid aesthetic of what men thought they should be. They all helped women to be able to express their personalities, to rebel against the shackles that constrained them and to find their way.  

Patria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal were brutally murdered on 25 November 1960 under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo Molina. Minerva had publicly rejected the sexual advances of the dictator of the Dominican Republic, and Trujillo plotted the revenge of a man who thinks women are his property. They became the symbol of what violence against women means, and their death marks the day we choose to remember even more forcefully that there is still a long way to go to put an end to it. 

Many initiatives in the fashion world want to make the problem visible and do something about it. The Blue Runway of the World Bank's WEvolve programme wanted to empower young women and men to challenge the social norms that lead to gender-based violence. The Kering group - owner of brands such as Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent - launched the #ICouldHaveBeenHer campaign with the participation of Stella McCartney, Joseph Altuzarra and Salma Hayek. In Spain, the Government Delegation against Gender Violence launched the exhibition ‘What were you wearing?’ in 2023 as an invitation to reflect on where society places the responsibility for what happened based on why eight women heard that question after experiencing an episode of sexual violence.

Fashion is part of the social fabric and a tool that allows us to question and fight against preconceived ideas. And it is, above all, a valid way for survivors of gender-based violence and aggression to recover and be able to live fully, in freedom and without harm.