



































The impetus for the contradictory term, “homeless chic,” initially emerged on the scene in the spring of 2000, when designer Jo


[Expositions 5.1 (2011) 41-43]  Expositions (online) ISSN: 1747-5376 

Introduction to the Academic Roundtable  

“Homeless Chic:” The Cultural Contradictions of Representations of the 

Homeless and of Homelessness 

JENNIFER JOYCE KISSKO 

Center for Liberal Education and the Center for Peace and Justice Education 

Villanova University 

 

 

The contradictory term “homeless chic” was initially employed in the spring of 2000, when 

designer John Galliano introduced his “boho-meets-hobo chic” spring-summer haute couture 

collection for the House of Dior in Paris. Dior models wore newspapers, straightjackets, tin cups, 

and whiskey bottles. The denigration of homelessness implied by these images caused quite a 

stir, especially from homeless advocates. By placing abject images of extreme poverty within the 

context of the privileged world of couture, Galliano‟s “art” essentially reinforced an already 

present separation between rich and poor, othering “them” and comically rendering those 

experiencing homelessness as almost sub-human and limited in a fixed identity. Although he 

revealed his source of inspiration to be les clochards (homeless people) he passed during his 

daily runs, and maintained that his intentions were to “expose the pure decadence of the couture 

by „turning it inside out,‟” his designs shocked the public.
1
 Met with much negativity from critics 

who claimed how preposterous it was for him to be exploiting the misfortunes of others in an 

effort of aesthetics, Galliano publicly apologized, quietly retreated, and has since worked to 

repair the damage done to his reputation by rebounding with many admired collections since.
2
 

Nevertheless, Galliano‟s controversial “homeless chic” could not be quickly or easily 

forgotten when in 2001, Hollywood presented the hit comedy Zoolander, starring Ben Stiller as 

an aspiring male model, as a direct parody of Galliano‟s disastrous spring line. The film calls its 

version Derelicte – explained in the movie as “a fashion, a way of life inspired by the very 

homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city [NYC] so unique.”
3
 The 

film‟s satirical attempt to gussy up the word “derelict” and its connotations into a form of 

upscale chic seemed to represent the commonly held view by the public that Galliano‟s vision 

did not coincide with the sense of cultural sympathy and human identification with the homeless 

present in the 1980s nor in the beginnings of the new millennium.  

Yet despite a general reaction of shock and repulsion toward the oddity and absurdity of even 

the mere term “homeless chic,” there still lingered in the media a kind of fascination with such a 

contradictory and slippery concept. The fashion style first presented by Galliano continued to 

make headlines when tabloids and celebrity magazines like People began dropping the 

“bohemian” tag and began identifying the fashion choices of Hollywood celebrities as “homeless 

chic.” Between 2004 and 2009, “homeless chic” lost its mostly negative connotations and began 

garnering more positive attention, for a style that rejects the overt display of wealth.  



42  Kissko 
 

In popular culture over the past several years, “homeless chic” has surfaced widely – from 

television shows and magazine spreads, to even the toy industry. For example, in the February 

27, 2008, episode of Tyra Banks‟ America’s Next Top Model girls experiencing homelessness 

were invited to the set and given the opportunity to try on couture clothing while the show‟s 

models, apparently choosing not to interact with their guests, attempted to channel what it might 

be like to live on the streets as they posed as homeless. In September 2009, the American high 

fashion magazine W displayed a “Paper Bag Princess” line designed by Alex White, modeled by 

Sasha Pirorarova, and shot by Craig McDean, in which a “dark, urban portfolio of street style 

me[t] high fashion.”
4
 The photographs depict Pirorarova wearing different ensembles of pieces 

of paper shopping bags from Prada and Dior, mainly lying down in various urban street settings, 

and the series was met with rave reviews about the creation of such “great art.” That same year, 

Mattel produced a new limited edition addition to their American Girl Doll Collection, “the 

wildly successful, extremely expensive brand of faux children that are sold out of a four-story 

town house in the heart of Fifth Avenue.”
5 Doll Gwen Thompson‟s back-story included a 

narrative about her father walking out on the family and Gwen living in her car with her mother, 

all in the name of awareness. Yet the doll sold for ninety-five dollars with none of the proceeds 

directly earmarked for homeless aid. After a much-contested and negative reaction to the 

product, American Girl released a response to the criticisms that cited its fundraising and 

“ongoing partnership” in the last several years with national non-profit homeless housing group 

HomeAid in “its mission to support the temporarily homeless.”
6
 It also removed from its website 

any mention of homelessness in conjunction with Gwen, who is currently sold out.
7
 

This glaringly contradictory term “homeless chic” offers occasion for critical thinking about 

the intersections of class, identity, representation, citizenship, and power, and the contributors to 

this Academic Roundtable approach the topic from a variety of perspectives. Paula Mathieu, in 

“Public Rhetorics and Homeless Chic,” offers ways to think about “homeless chic” through the 

purview of public rhetoric. She asks, and offers tentative, speculative answers, to some 

particularly productive questions like: “What kinds of publics are being hailed into being under 

the banner of “homeless chic”? Who benefits and who gets hurt from these depictions? And, 

Does our academic attention to this matter enlighten or merely fuel this spectacle?” Amanda 

Grzyb examines programs that encourage participants to pretend to be poor as a way of 

purportedly gaining knowledge of the experience itself. She argues in her contribution, 

“„Homeless Chic‟ as Domestic Poverty Tourism: Street Retreats, Urban Plunges, and North 

American Class Boundaries,” that although perhaps well-intentioned, efforts of advocacy and 

awareness like alternative spring break experiences of living as homeless and street yoga retreats 

actually reinforce already-existing class boundaries. In “Fashion/ing Statements: Reading 

Homeless Bodies in Contemporary Fiction,” Dorothea Löbbermann critiques representations of 

homeless bodies in literature – how they are described, how they are dressed, and what the 

relationship between the bodies and their clothes signify. The next contribution is a visual 

answer to the paradoxes of “homeless chic” that was eventually published in Stütze, one of 

Berlin‟s homeless street newspapers, in 2003. Three students of Berlin University of the Arts – 



Introduction to the Academic Roundtable  43 

 

Victoria Kirjuchina, Caroline Scotto and Dominik Schumacher – reenacted two Vogue fashion 

editorials with actors of a homeless theater group, Die Ratten 07. Finally, my own contribution, 

“Homeless Chic in the Classroom” examines what happens when these issues of representation, 

cultural paradox, and rhetorical publics in relation to homelessness become classroom discourse. 

In the piece, I share some reflections on teaching a course based on the concept of “homeless 

chic”, and the conclusions drawn by university students about the contradictory and conflicted 

representations of homelessness present in cultural artifacts such as contemporary literature and 

film. It is our hope that this Academic Roundtable on “homeless chic” gives a current and varied 

perspective on the cultural contradictions of the representations of homelessness present in our 

world today. 

 

 

Notes 

 

1. Polyvore, “John Galliano,” Feb. 15, 2010, http://www.polyvore.com/john_galliano/set? 

id=5950663. 

2. Elle.com, “From the Sublime to the Absurd: John Galliano,” January 2001,  

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/ELLE/05/02/. 

3. Zoolander. Dir. Ben Stiller. Paramount, 2002. 

4. “Sasha: Paper Bag Princess,” IMG Models Blog, August 20, 2009, 

http://imgmodelsblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/sasha-paper-bag-princess/. 

5. Andrea Peyser, “„Homeless‟ Doll Costs $95 (Hairstyling Extra),” New York Post Sept. 24, 2009, 

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/item_4Ic0hC7Lacpfo8HQbczsQM. 

6. “„Homeless‟ American Girl Doll Costs $95,” The Consumerist Sept. 29, 2009, 

http://consumerist.com/2009/09/homeless-american-girl-doll-costs-95.html. 

7. American Girl, “Gwen Doll and Paperback Book,” 2010, 

http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/ProductPage.jsf/itemId/142095/itemType/TOY/webTe

mplateId/3/uniqueId/609/saleGroupId/1123. 

 

 

http://www.polyvore.com/john_galliano/set?%20id=5950663
http://www.polyvore.com/john_galliano/set?%20id=5950663
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/ELLE/05/02/
http://imgmodelsblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/sasha-paper-bag-princess/
http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/item_4Ic0hC7Lacpfo8HQbczsQM
http://consumerist.com/2009/09/homeless-american-girl-doll-costs-95.html
http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/ProductPage.jsf/itemId/142095/itemType/TOY/webTemplateId/3/uniqueId/609/saleGroupId/1123
http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/ProductPage.jsf/itemId/142095/itemType/TOY/webTemplateId/3/uniqueId/609/saleGroupId/1123

