Drugs: In and Out of Fashion

Earlier this year I was asked by a good friend of mine to write an article for his menswear fashion label / journal, MORAL. I thought I'd post the article here since I don't post anything here nowadays.
Drugs. A word dictionaries collectively define as substances used as or in medication, which affect the body physiologically, and no further. But say the word “drugs” to any sane person and there sure will rise an overpowering negative impression, far bigger than the word’s association to anything medical. Wikipedia sums it better by defining drugs as substances which have medicinal, intoxicating, and performance enhancing properties.

It’s easy enough to guess that humans had started their history with drugs since the prehistoric age and be right. From the natural to the artificial forms, drugs have been used through the ages for healing, cultural, and recreational purposes. And among the histories us humans shared with drugs, the fashion industry certainly have one of the most winding kind.

A strict industry with many unwritten rules, such as having to present garments in a scheduled manner using girls mostly booked from prestigious agencies, the current fashion industry had started its affair with drugs as early as the time of Coco Chanel. The affair ran its course in the psychedelic sixties, the funky seventies, the golden age of Studio 54 in the eighties, through the heroin chic trend in the nineties, and the size zero filled noughties. The affair is apparently deep and complicated enough to involve virtually every level of the industry, from the creative teams, the mid-teen aged models, the agents, to the glamor-sprinkled professionals in public relations.
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