'This is so so gross': Internet slams Bret Easton Ellis for essay calling fashion too inclusive

“If everyone is beautiful then nobody is beautiful.” Contrary to the new wave of inclusivity and body positivity in the fashion industry, American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis believes that vanity is not — and should not — be fair.

In an op-ed slated for Vogue Italia’s July 2019 issue, Ellis decries the recent push for inclusivity and body positivity in the fashion world, and castigates millennial cancel culture, which he refers to as “millennial groupthink.”

“This is a world where the body positivity movement says all bodies are beautiful and if you don’t find a heavy-set woman or a plus-sized model attractive, you are in fact body-shaming her and need to be cancelled,” reads an excerpt of the essay published by the Business of Fashion.

“If everyone is beautiful then nobody is beautiful. But the groupthink of Millennials doesn’t realise this yet”

Amidst a fashion era in which models of all colors, shapes and sizes are finally being welcomed in the spotlight, Ellis challenges the idea that “everyone should be equal with another,” and criticizes the practice of “valuing ideology over aesthetics” in fashion.

Instead, the author glorifies the “inaccessibility and exclusivity of the fashion world” in the mid-1990s and its narrow definition of beauty—which just happens to be the setting of his novel Glamorama, a satire of celebrity culture featuring model-turned-terrorists.

“Their beauty made them incredibly exclusive — they didn’t look like anyone else and this was what made them so special — and their world was exclusive as well, which is what made it so unbearably alluring,” Ellis wrote.

With a touch of nostalgia, Ellis added,“This world does not exist today.”

While Ellis appears to call for a return to the exclusive fashion world of the ‘90s, others called Ellis “washed and confused” arguing that his homogenous beauty standards belong in the past.

“Beauty is diversity and perfection is boring,” an Instagram user commented on an excerpt of Ellis’ op-ed for Vogue Italia. “Leave your superiority and exclusivity in the 20th century please.”

Others criticized Ellis for completely missing the point of body positivity, calling his diatribe against the move towards inclusivity “gross.”

“Maybe not everybody is beautiful, but every type of person and body can be and there is beauty in everybody. Attractive people come in every size,” one Instagram user commented. “ Also, why are we still letting men like this dictate who is and is not worthy? This is all so so gross.”

Other people online also called out Vogue Italia for publishing the controversial essay in the first place, particularly as a fashion magazine that was once the leading voice in the fashion and beauty industry.

“Wow Vogue, God forbid we let fat people have self worth,” wrote one Instagram user. “Everyone is beautiful in their own way and the whole point on the body confidence movement is knowing that even though some people won’t be attracted to you physically, your self worth and value isn’t based on that.”

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