was my first ever photoshoot. She taught
me that I don’t have to compromise myself
to fit into this industry. Before then, clothes
for me were as simple as, ‘I just need to
cover my body and leave the house.’
Carine made me feel beautiful and
confident. I felt like I was a supermodel
when she styled me.
In high school, it was really hard to find
[modest] clothes. Even for graduation,
I looked for six months to find something
with long sleeves that covered my back.
I ended up with one of the most basic white
dresses, but it was still sleeveless because
I couldn’t find anything that would cover
my neck. I just paired it with a hijab.
The problem was trying to look youthful
and stylish, and I didn’t learn how to do
that until I started in this industry and saw
how designers and stylists would work
with a turtleneck. All of a sudden, a dress
I thought was off-limits — BOOM, I’m
wearing it. This is why young girls follow
me — they’re looking at my page and
they’re like, ‘Oh, I can do that!’ I recently
did a shoot with Carine where we
recreated [Dutch artist Johannes
Vermeer’s] Girl With A Pearl Earring
painting, and girls were sending photos to
me on Halloween saying, ‘This is what I
went as.’ That gives me chills.
One of my career highlights was
being named a UNICEF Ambassador.
I was a UNICEF baby, so I know what it’s
like to be a child refugee. I lived in
a refugee camp for seven years — it’s
something you never forget — so to come
back now and use this platform to speak
about their work has been incredible.
I talk to the children at camps in Mexico,
Chad and other places and ask, ‘What
do you want to be when you grow up?’
Some say, ‘I want to be a pilot, or a doctor
or a lawyer,’ but some also say, ‘I want to
be a designer, I want to be a model.’ So
now I am thinking about how I can use my
fashion connections to make their dreams
a reality.” E“I spend much of my time working with
women in refugee camps in Gaza, favelas
in Brazil, rice paddies in Asia and
townships in South Africa, so there’s a
humour and an irony to being at a couture
show. But the marvel is that Maria Grazia
Chiuri, the first female artistic director at the
house of Dior, is a feminist as well, and she
wants to put her art at the service of getting
that message out. She’s embracing it —
that’s a moment in history.
The definition of feminism is broadening.
So often the mistake gets made that
feminism is a ‘thing’; a static thing like a still
picture as opposed to a movie. Feminism is
really a process. A woman always starts
sooner or later. Maybe it’s after one too
many insults, either at home or at her job or
on the street. That’s the point in which she
realises she needs other women. She’s
fighting for herself first, but
then extends to the
patriarchy and the society
around her. It’s like, childbirth
hurts the same whether
you have it under pristine
conditions in a hospital or in
a village hut: labour pains
are labour pains. You begin
to realise that certain
experiences in the female
body are universal, and we look to those
similarities because the patriarchy is so
good at finding the differences.
God knows how many little girls were
turned on by hearing Beyoncé suggest the
notion that everybody should be a feminist.
Beyoncé is serious; she’s not just playing
with it. We’re working with her at
The Sisterhood Global Institute [the
organisation Morgan founded in 1984],
and we can hopefully help her, too.ROBIN
MORGAN
BACKSTAGE AT
CHRISTIAN DIOR AW19,
THE AUTHOR, POET AND
ACTIVIST WAXES LYRICAL
ON THE FUTURE OF
FEMINISMI was over the moon when the first
reaction to Donald Trump [being elected]
was The Women’s March. But I’m an old
organiser and I’m cynical, so I was afraid
that it would happen once and then
everyone would go back home and back
to normal. But they didn’t; they made it
consistent and they broadened it. And
The Women’s March was not only the
women’s march. The high-school marches
that happen all over the US, those are
majority girls. The teacher strikes — most
teachers are female. So women march
and men come down to support them in
ways they have not done before. It’s
a nightmare to be an American with
Trump in the White House, but we are
moving as fast and as hard as we can to
get him out. There are a lot of women
running in 2020, so I am hopeful. I’m not
naive at this point; I know what it’s going to
take. It’s going to be very hard, but it won’t
be impossible.” EAs told to Genevra Leek and Susannah Guthrie. Photography: courtesy of UOMA Beauty; Jason Lloyd-Evans Robin Morgan (far right) with Maria Grazia Chiuri
A Christian Dior model
wears the title of
Morgan’s 1984 book,
Sisterhood Is Global.“CERTAIN
EXPERIENCES
in the FEMALE
BODY are
UNIVERSAL”STYLE ESSAYS