Diet Prada: From Superheroes to Police

Last year amidst rumours of sponsored collaborations and advertisements, we questioned ourselves about the integrity of the fashion industry’s moral superheroes Diet Prada. We questioned whether they were the selfless crime fighting gods the industry made them out to be or if they were rather more of an opportunistic duo waiting in the shadows for their time to shine.  Well, the verdict is finally in, and although they seem to point more towards the latter things still seem to be quite unclear. Just this week, they revealed that they would now be joining a membership platform called Patreon where users pay ($5 a month) to access specially curated exclusive content including fashion news, history and gossip — a move that in hindsight would seem more opportunistic than anything. However, let’s have a closer look on how the duo has been operating in the past few years. 

The Diet Prada instagram page which launched 6 years ago initially began as an anonymous platform that spoke objectively and candidly about all the injustices happening in the fashion industry including plagiarism, sexual assault, racism and more . This was especially iconic because it was launched during a time when many magazines, influencers and journalists were no longer being objective but operating in a way favourable to their advertisers and sponsors. They were the superheroes of the industry, in that they would appear whenever there was an issue, and publicly scold the persons or brands involved, anonymously saving the day for nothing in return. However as time went by, things changed and in 2018 the Diet Prada duo officially revealed their identities in a BOF special as New York based duo designer Tony Liu and consultant Lindsey Schuyler. Following this they were seen at seasonal shows & collaborating with brands like Ferragamo, Gucci & Tommy Hilfiger. 

They were in bed with the enemy, there was dirt in the water because they were no longer objective, but were collaborating with the brands that they were exposing a few months earlier. Which in hindsight, was a smart move from the perspective of the brands in keeping their  enemies closer. So for the past few years they have been operating on this marred reputation. Within the fashion industry there has been a cloud of uncertainty of how honest their brand posts were, as a result of not knowing if they were being paid or not. The reality is of course everyone needs to pay their bills, and the duo has never actually declared themselves to be objective journalists, but being paid by the “bad guys”, the entities you were occasionally exposing raises moral questions.

However, this new Patreon venture is somewhat different, it’s like a type of crowdfunding that one would hope is essentially representative of their financial independence from the industry,  “It’s a meaningful way to help sustain an independent source of news and information. With your support, we can continue retaining an independent voice and full editorial and creative control,” they explained in the caption.

With this new addition, it once again changes the outlook of the Diet Prada duo. In movies, one of the best things is watching the public around them cheer and scream as the superhero saves the day, but would it be the same if they had to be paid to do it ? Well then that would make them into police wouldn’t it ? Half-way effective, and not nearly as exciting.