In this issue you’ll find interviews with two French icons: Catherine Deneuve, a legend of French cinema and a conscious but nonmilitant feminist, and Hélène Cixous, a highly respected author, philosopher, and critic, and a central figure in contemporary feminist theory. The standard cliché is that fashion is anti-feminist, that it objectifies women with its superficial commercialism, that it’s an industry designed to alienate women by reducing their identities to their appearance. This is as one-sided as saying that fashion empowers women, that it helps women to liberate themselves, dress for themselves and speak for themselves, and that it can push the boundaries of gender stereotyping. Anything can happen in fashion. Fashion can be feminist and anti-feminist at the same time. This open contradiction and permanent opposition can lean toward progressive ways of representing women or, on the contrary, toward regressive social stereotypes that instrumentalize women. By raising this controversial…