Are all male fashion designers gay?

Of course not. Yes there are prominent gay men in the business - but that's something to applaud
Tommy Hilfiger and his wife
Tommy Hilfiger and his wife Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Why are all male fashion designers gay?

David, by email

I'm sorry, I think you have your Guardian columns mixed up. All enquiries expressing concern that a family member might be gay should be addressed to Pamela Stephenson- Connolly, Sexual Healing, c/o this parish, etc etc. Oh, no wait a minute – sorry, I read your email too quickly. You didn't ask whether your father is gay (because you caught him masturbating over a gay porn magazine, as one Sexual Healing inquiry had it), but why all male fashion designers are gay. Oh, for God's sake.

I'm always amazed at the popularity of this ridiculous canard. Honestly, am I the only one who eagerly snaffles down articles with headlines such as "Ralph and Ricky Lauren show us around their glamorous ranch!" or "Tommy and Dee Hilfiger invite us to their fabulous beach hideaway"? With perhaps the exception of "A day in the life of a supermodel", there is no genre of fashion article I love more than one in which a fashion designer shows off his lovely home, one he often shares with someone else, and, as often as not, that other person is someone of the opposite gender. Just off the top of my head, aside from Lauren and Hilfiger, Paul Smith, Rick Owens, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Lacroix and Yohji Yamamoto are all male fashion designers who do more for the ladies than design clothes for them (sorry – that looks a lot creepier written down than it sounded in my head). All male fashion designers, all straight.

But of course, fashion detractors with homophobic tendencies don't like these obvious examples because they don't corroborate their pet theory that fashion is a medium through which evil gay men humiliate women because they are jealous of their femaleness.

I have heard this ridiculous theory proposed by an amazing number of people over the years, by many seemingly otherwise intelligent beings with heretofore very hidden bigoted tendencies, and it's one that never fails to fascinate me. Let's not even bother with the patently hilarious ideas that gay men want to be women (without wishing to resort to sweeping generalisations myself, the gay men in my acquaintance generally look like they're having a lot more fun than the women), or that women are so stupid they not only don't know when they're being "humiliated" but that they pay money to be so. And then let's resist making the deeply obvious points that there are plenty of female fashion designers who make clothes that are just as uncomfortable as anything churned out by a gay male fashion designer; or that the people who are truly in charge of the fashion world, ie major magazine editors and the head of fashion conglomerates such as PPR and LVMH, are all either women or straight men.

Like I said, I'll leave all that to the side. What I won't leave, though, is wondering why fashion and fashion designers are being singled out here. Heck, there are loads of industries that are predicated on humiliating women! How about – oh, let's say – romantic comedies starring Katherine Heigl. Are they all masterminded by evil gay men? Or whoever invented Brazilian waxes?

But because the gay men are more visible in fashion than they are in any of the above, they and the industry they work for become an easy target for homophobia.

Obviously, I am not saying that you are homophobic, David. But I am saying that you have been gulled by a generalisation that comes from a deeply homophobic place about all men in fashion being evil queens who are intent on causing pain to anyone lucky enough to have been born with a uterus, out of a twisted sense of vengeance. Yes, there are a lot of prominent and out gay men in the fashion world – shouldn't that be something to applaud the fashion world for? Well, not if you're a homophobe, of course.

I find myself in despair at the abundance of short, squat, square jumpers in the shops this season. Does anyone look good in them?

Tina, by email

Yes: very thin and tall people. It just so happens that models are all very thin and tall. Designers sometimes forget that not all women are built like models, not because they're misogynist pigs, but because models are who they fit their clothes on. So don't worry, Tina. This is just one of those trends that appear occasionally then swiftly disappear when no one buys them. In the end, it's customers' wallets that really control the fashion world.
