This is an extremely interesting article and a bit different from what one typically finds in the fashion pages (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/bof-exclusive/antwerp-academy-student-suicide-calls-teaching-methods-into-question?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=45e5bef93e-antwerp-academy-student-suicide-calls-teaching-met&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-45e5bef93e-417297929).
It’s prompted by the sad case of a suicide at the highly prestigious fashion school in Antwerp, Belgium. What is says about Belgian university culture is spot on, as I know from my years at the Catholic University of Louvain. I also suspect it’s correct about the cult of personality that reigns in the school — and don’t miss the crazy administration weasel claim that there are no cultic rites practiced!
Most disturbing, by far, however, is the sense the students have that their comments must remain anonymous because their speaking out publicly would derail their careers, and not merely poison their time at the school. As the article relates, students again and again said this. It is a terrible indictment of the fashion industry. The fate of whistleblowers is never good in any industry but that so many young fashion students are already keenly aware of this fact is ghastly.
I think tremendously valuable work is done in fashion and design — our lives are ennobled by it — but the moral standing of the industry must needs be probed and its sometimes hectoring, moral crusading treated with skepticism.
