Forget Prêt-à-Porter; it's about Pret-a-Revolter!

Today, I became intellectually acquainted with a group that brings about a whole new meaning to the phrase "fashion for social justice." Las Agencias, an artist collective based in Barcelona but created to challenge the world through visuals, paint, song, dance, jumpsuits, and FASHION notions of identity, militaristic fury, gentrification and all things resulting from blind nationalism. Structured not unlike a visual consultancy, this art protest collective is equipped with a line of fashion and accessories (notably "Pret-a-Revolter," or "Ready to Revolt," a spin on the french term for Ready to Wear, aka. "Prêt-à-Porter") as well as a graphics and media agency, and other sects.

So let's get to the fashion. Pret-a-Revolter is a line of acid color clothes with pockets created for a very practical purpose: policing the police! "Prêt A Revolter consists of colorful clothes that contain hidden pockets permitting the wearer to conceal materials for buffering police batons or to conceal cameras for documenting abuse by the constabulary." (Source: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. They said it so well, there was really no use paraphrasing!)

In light of the Stop and Frisk Rally for Father's Day yesterday, perhaps we should be equipped with these police-monitoring security camera concealing jumpsuits...just a thought.

(Photo sourced from ExperimentalFashion.blogspot.com)

Aside from Ready-To-Revolt, Las Agencias has also developed an off-shoot fashion project, which includes of a line of counter-consumerist shoplifting facilitating clothes and bags. As a designer, I'm all about paying for what you like in a boutique (us boutique owners and craftspeople gotta eat too!), though this very real form of counter-consumerist clothing is nothing to sneeze at. (Perhaps, we could all use a little less retail therapy, and some good 'ol natural self love).

(Image Source: midiaindependente.org)

From Occupy Wall Street to the Carnivals of the past centuries, the Americas- and the world for that matter- have had a tradition of counter-cultural, subversive, freedom-fighting inducing fashion that has and continues to change how people and governments operate.

Think about it. When you get dressed in the morning, is your fashion choices enough to engage a revolution? How would you feel if it did?

Peace, love, and Protest Couture,

T*

(Image Source: interactivist.autonomedia.org)