Slut Walk... Meadham Kirchhoff Style

Photo: Fillippo Fior

For the January issue of Vogue, models and the design duo themselves re-created a Slut Walk march, the protest against gender discrimination based on clothing which swept the globe in summer last year. The controversial quasi-political movement was sparked by comments made by a Toronto police officer to students that in order to avoid assault, "women should avoid dressing like sluts", and in response, women took to the streets dressed however they wished, often provocatively, to declare a woman's right to decide the length of her dress. Far from uniting feminists everywhere, the issue is certainly fraught with tensions, of which designers Meadham Kirchhoff seem fully aware, tapping into the complex controversy for their Spring Summer 2012 show.

In the picture for Vogue, screaming models march on the streets of Dalston sporting blond wigs and a power-trip of pastel hues and glitter wave placards in candy colours of the female anatomy, in designs with cartoon hearts as bibs, cartoon eyes across breasts and look-at-me! disco panties. Their particular cause? A  celebration of all things fresh, funky and feminine. "The clothes might appear sweet, playful, naive - but that does not mean the wearers are", explained Edward Meadham. The Vogue shoot is the next logical step from their collection, shown in September, of pastel slips, sugar-sweet cardigans and lashings of candy colour make-up; the show referenced all things feminine kitsch and retro, from Barbie, ultimate "kinderwhore", to showgirls, beauty pagaent winners and starlets.

Said Meadham of the show, they were inspired by "the girl on the cake. I wanted to take them off the cake, and put a real girl up there" and this is a screaming celebration of all things "pink and plastic". Like Slut Walks, it is easy to misread their message. Many women I spoke to at socialist festival Marxism in July 2011 had a problem with the movement. One said something along the lines of "we don't want to encourage our little sisters to be sluts". Yet for me, albeit as a part-time exhibitionist, clothesoholic and individualist, it is exactly that label and its power that doing what you want rejects; if a woman is a "slut" for not making a secret of her enjoyment of sex, then the word needs changing, not the girl.

In just the same way, Meadham Kirchhoff declare that girls should embrace and celebrate their identity, not run away from it. Other designers, from Christopher Kane and Erdem to Louis Vuitton and Valentino, also produced flouncy, feminine-ist collections with lace, feathers, broderie anglaise and of course, lashings of pink and white. Perhaps these lack have the political irony of Meadham Kirchhoff, but then maybe the point is that one can always subtly show a point of view through clothing. Meadham told Vogue, "hopefully what we do has got that political element - it's good to address things but not rant about them".