The term has been used recurringly in the works of designers and scholars Lynda Grose, Kate Fletcher, Mathilda Tham, Kirsi Niinimäki, Anja-Lisa Hirscher, Zoe Romano, and Orsola de Castro, as they refer to systemic social and political change through the means of fashion.
According to Google Ngram Viewer, the term's popularity takes off in the 1990s, even though signaling activism through the means of dress has been practiced much longer.
In his book Dress-codes (2021), legal scholar Richard Thompson Ford stated that clothing has been designed and used with political intentions throughout the ages, and the documented evidence stretches at least back to the renaissance in the Western world.
[6] As with other forms of activism, the aim is to promote, impede, direct, or intervene into social arrangements of dress to lay claim to a certain political agenda as well as influence systemic change within the fashion industry.
That is, the activism includes awareness raising and civic mobilization, as well as behavior change and pushes for environmental as much as socio-political and systemic impact.
For example, the use of traditional ethnic dress as a protest against "progressive" politics (or colonialism, or Universal Human Rights, or Feminism) may not be seen as "fashion."
Fashion activism can take place on catwalks and in art galleries, but the use of the term connotes garments donned in everyday life.
Everyday examples of fashion activism in Western societies range from apparel with peace sign symbols that were popularized in the late 20th century,[8] the use of military dress as anti-war activism amongst the hippies in the 1960s, the 'Make America Great Again' hats sported by Donald Trump supporters throughout and following the 2016 presidential campaign,[9] and the controversial use of Hawaii shirts amongst proponents of the "Boogaloo" movement.
It is common to claim fashion activism as a Western phenomenon, even though it may take its most apparent form in expressing global tensions.
[13] Franz Fanon and Homi K. Bhabha wrote that clothes are used to negotiate and resist occupation or colonial forces of assimilation as a form of hybridity.
[15] Wearing symbols of opposing sides in global conflicts is also a popular form of fashion activism, such as ethnic or religious insignia and army patches.
[17] In this context, items in her collections have been used as means of fashion activism; a 'Dignity Key' necklace with which people can show support for displaced Middle Eastern refugees, a 'Banned' scarf showing the universal impact of President Trump's Muslim ban, and a '1st Amendment Flight Jacket' collaboration with ACLU, featuring the First Amendment text is written in Arabic, standing up to the rise in islamophobia in the United States and hate crimes against American Muslims.
The suffragettes were identified by three main colors that they wore to events: purple for loyalty and dignity, white for purity, and yellow for virtue.
As a way of expressing their non-violent ideology, hippies dressed in colorful clothes, bell-bottoms, tie-dye apart, paisley prints, and black armbands.
[20] The Bloomers, a garment suggesting unrestricted movement as opposed to the constructed figures of the Victorian age, were made popular by women's rights activists in the 1850s.
Taking their name from their best-known advocate, the women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, they also came to symbolize the wider suffragette movement and dress reform.
While the nostalgia of the 1970s saw a return to more conventional hemlines, the mini skirt persists as a symbol of women’s rights and sexual liberation to this day.
Fueled by the DIY ethos of the punk era, Vivienne Westwood’s subversive t-shirt designs brought the slogan aesthetic into the mainstream in the 1970s.