Creativity Is in Its Corporate Sellout Era

We've reached an inflection point for "bad art."

Recently, I found myself sipping champagne at the Art Gallery of Ontario with Toronto’s glitterati amidst greenery-filled floral arrangements and a smattering of mannequins draped in winter coats. The event was ostensibly to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Canada Goose, though that was not abundantly clear; the press release promised “a glimpse into the future of Canada Goose as we unveil a tribute to our rich history, and introduce exciting new chapters with our newly appointed Creative Director Haider Ackermann.”

Ackermann, whose heavily-tailored proto-goth sensibility powered his eponymous brand until it quietly folded in 2020, joined Canada Goose earlier this year as the brand’s “first-ever creative director,” joining an esteemed list of fashion designers who have taken up corporate jobs, including Christophe Lemaire and Claire Waight Keller at Uniqlo, Natasha Ramsay-Levi at Ecco and Zac Posen at Gap. (Last month he was also announced as the creative director of Tom Ford.)

It’s not hard to see why these creative-corporate alliances exist. At first glance they’re good for everybody. The brand receives the added sheen of being associated with known talent and the known talent receives, well, money. I used to find these high/low designer “collabs” hugely exciting. When I was a teenage fashion blogger, I went positively off the rails when Target’s first collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld was announced in 2004. Chanel design at democratic prices? Sign me up! But as time marches on, I find myself increasingly cynical about this allegedly mutualistic arrangement. Sure, it’s a great way of making high end designs available to people who don’t want to pay $1000 for a shirt. But on the other hand, it’s damning evidence of how creativity in fashion virtually cannot exist unless it’s being propped up by corporate interests.

In 2023, the New York Times published a story about the financial struggles indie designer Elena Velez was facing while building her brand. Despite being named the emerging designer of the year by the CFDA, she had $370 in her bank account. While I’m not particularly interested in Velez’s aggressive, goading designs or reactionary politics, the story was instructive on the virtual impossibility of making money as an independent designer. Between all of the slow fashion brands closing and all the amazing creative people who won’t even bother taking the leap to start their own label because of the prohibitive costs, how much genuine creativity are we missing out on?

In the 90s, “selling out” used to be a thing. Anyone who has seen Reality Bites knows the struggle. College graduate Leilana Pierce, played by Winona Ryder, spends the movie grappling with her desire to reach her career goals while maintaining a semblance of artistic integrity. Now, it feels like you have to sell out in order to have any sort of artistic integrity at all. One wonders if Mara Hoffman had a side job designing for say, Old Navy, would her namesake label still be operating today?

This is the exact opposite effect that “democratizing” tools like the internet were expected to have. When the internet was first gaining steam, everyone predicted that without traditional gatekeepers in place, new creative projects that otherwise wouldn’t get made would flourish and a new creative class would rise up. Instead, what happened is that anyone who wants to participate in creativity has to jump though a series of algorithmic hoops in order to gain attention. It’s still gatekeeping, only it isn’t some grey-haired guy in a suit sitting behind a desk, it’s literally everyone who spends time clicking stuff on their phones.

Frankly, this is much worse than one individual gatekeeper because instead of being rooted in individual taste, people have to essentially mold themselves into a specific form of palatability in order to be accepted. Only once they have created enough appeasing content to become popular online, will they be rewarded with the ability to pursue a career in their chosen field.

As a result, nobody is making art that is truly subversive anymore.¹ In order to for artists to begin producing truly edgy — or just less commercial— art, we need to go back to making art for arts sake, whether or not anyone sees it. I fully believe that the constant attention-baiting and attempts at going viral we’re constantly exposed to online are actively making the world a worse place to live. (If that’s something you do either for fun or for work, I genuinely think you should reconsider your life choices.)

I can rattle off a list of designers whose incredible creativity should have been enough to keep them afloat: Meadham Kirchhoff, Luella Bartley, Band of Outsiders, Christopher Kane, The Vampire’s Wife. In a just world, all of these designers would have thriving careers and still exist today. Instead, we require them to work full-time at Uniqlo. This is all a potent reminder that something being popular is not an accurate indication of whether or not it is good. Maybe someday we’ll return to an economic reality where designers will be able to fully realize their artistic ambitions. But until then, we have Haider Ackermann at Canada Goose. Let’s hope he makes some really great parkas.

1. My theory on the Red Scare/Dimes Square anti-woke “left” stuff is that appeals to people because it’s the last bastion of what feels like subculture. They genuinely don’t seem to give a shit how many people hate them, which unfortunately does sort of make them cool.