Am I entitled not to be offended? Admittedly, I have been in situations whereby people around me are so passionate about controversial issues and I’m uncomfortable with myself for not feeling angry.

Society has changed in terms of it seems like being offended is the worst thing that can possibly happen. Which seems strange to me. I’m being hypocritical really seeing as I am such a people pleaser and dread the thought of anything I’m saying upsetting anyone. But at the same time, I’ve heard hurtful and offensive things in the past, even personal comments, which, whilst they’ve upset me, I have moved past and don’t dwell on.  

Ethics is such a lengthy discussion in the fashion industry, which is known to hold the ‘shock factor’ and is willing to compromise morals in order to achieve this. There are several issues surrounding sustainability, gender, sex etc. that I could be here for decades discussing. The desire of fashion brands to hold this shock factor makes it difficult for them to achieve this without the potential of causing offence to someone. Particularly, in a world that has adopted the nit-picking habit of finding something to be offended by.

A case that I find interesting is the H&M controversy regarding the ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ hoodie. Honestly, if I had seen this without any awareness of the backlash that it caused, I wouldn’t have given it a second glance. If anything, I find it weird that people made the sudden association between the term being ‘monkey’ and him being black because it genuinely didn’t stand out to me, I saw a cute little boy in a fun slogan jumper and nothing else.

The thing is, there is certain imagery used in fashion that I do find questionable.

Above is a shocking image used by fashion brand ‘Sisley’. I understand they have tried to make the advertisement memorable through it being so striking. I also see they’ve used the term ‘fashion junkie’ so I take from the image that they’ve used the concept of the clothes/brand being ‘addictive’, the white dress is placed to look like cocaine. However, I am not personally a fan of the way in which drugs are being glamorised in the photo and it makes me feel a little uncomfortable seeing it, particularly with the woman in the purple dress holding an expression where she looks out of control or unwell.

What’s inevitable is that every individual will be offended by different things and fashion, being an artistic sector, is subjective. I know that on a personal level, I hold different opinions on each controversial image I see, some don’t bother me at all, some make me uncomfortable, and there are some that don’t bother me as such, but I don’t the see the need for the ‘shock’ factor for the product being advertised.

Part of me thinks that controversy isn’t always a bad thing. From a brand’s perspective, if a conversation is sparked by something they create, the word-of-mouth created awareness may work out to be profitable. But even as consumers, I don’t think a mixture of opinions is a bad thing and I think we are entitled to have these views.

I do agree that brands should be mindful of what they use for advertisement and don’t think it’s okay for them to blatantly insensitive. But, even when from my point of view, brands have no bad intentions and create something without the intention of it being controversial, let alone offensive, there will be people able to find something negative still. I struggle with the fact that we live in a society where lighthearted things can’t be enjoyed and this nit-picking habit means things are blown way out of proportion, distracting from more serious issues that I could argue are more important.