Fashion Bestiary
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Fashion Bestiary
@fashionbestiary.bsky.social
Exploring fashion, myth, and the beasts beneath our clothes.
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Farewell to Brigitte Bardot.
While celebrated as a cinema icon and animal rights activist, her legacy is complex. Her anti-fur campaigns had a devastating impact on Inuit communities, highlighting the clash between celebrity activism and Indigenous sovereignty.
open.substack.com/pub/fashionb...
The Unspoken Legacy of Brigitte Bardot
Uncovering the imperialism of anti-fur activism and the devastation of the Inuit
open.substack.com
December 31, 2025 at 3:56 PM
In the 1800s, critics used the fashion of wearing bird-covered hats to argue women were too cruel and irrational to deserve the vote.

Read how conservation is repeatedly weaponized to stall political progress. The argument is always about power, not just nature.

open.substack.com/pub/fashionb...
Protecting Birds, Projecting Politics
How Conservatives Continue to Weaponize Conservationism Against Progress
open.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:18 PM
From Kylie Jenner's Schiaparelli lion head to Victorian "murderous millinery," fashion and culture have always been obsessed with the animal body. 🦁👗

Read how anti-fur activism paved the way for designers like McQueen & Roseberry to reclaim the "trophy."

open.substack.com/pub/fashionb...
Beasts on the Catwalk: Fashion's Unruly Animal History
How the provocative history of "murderous millinery" and anti-fur activism forged McQueen's vision and paved the way for his heir, Daniel Roseberry
open.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Del Toro's #Frankenstein is a masterclass in costume design.

Read how Kate Hawley's work mirrors the legacy of #AlexanderMcQueen, using spines, feathers, and organic textures to turn the body into a site of tension and savage beauty.

Memento mori!

substack.com/@fashionbest...
Bone, Beast, and Beauty: The Shared Anatomy of McQueen and Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein
Costume designer Kate Hawley and the late Alexander McQueen use the spine, the feather, and the stitch to reveal the animal body beneath the social skin
substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:06 PM
The #McQueen x Shaun Leane Spine Corset (SS '98) is pure memento mori, Alexander McQueen’s visceral symbol of mortality. This Gothic Romanticism is perfect for Mia Goth's reminiscent spine dress in Guillermo del Toro's #Frankenstein. The designer becomes the creator of the creature’s Savage Beauty.
November 9, 2025 at 6:12 AM
A life worth mourning, yet also a mirror. What we find in the wild reflects our habits of care, power, distance, desire, and the long shadow of our own reflection. My new piece asks not what nature is, but how we learned to see ourselves within it.

#JaneGoodall

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Jane Goodall and the Persistence of the Colonial Gaze
While the Western world mourns a scientific giant, the work of dismantling inherited ways of seeing begins.
open.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Empress Eugénie’s crown in the gutter, a hummingbird in her hat, and the birth of fashion’s obsession with nature, empire, and display.

How one woman’s look changed fashion and the way we see the world. 👑🪶

#louvre #birds #fashion #history

open.substack.com/pub/fashionb...
The Empress’s Stolen Accessories
Empress Eugénie’s crown in the gutter, a bird in her bonnet, and the politics of beauty.
open.substack.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:32 PM
The boggart Snape outfit wasn’t random, it was fashion history. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, women wore full birds and fur-bearing animals as accessories, including feathers, wings, and even taxidermy. The fear and laughter carried a deeper meaning.
#HarryPotter #FashionHistory #Costume
October 19, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Once hunted nearly to extinction for their plumes, egrets now wade quietly through creeks, unaware of the history stitched into their feathers. Read more here:
fashionbestiary.substack.com/p/egrets-ive-had-a-few
#Egrets #FashionHistory #AnimalsInFashion #MaterialCulture #CulturalHistory
October 16, 2025 at 1:43 AM