GmbH broke the silence on Gaza

“We are not comfortable speakers, but the last few months have caused us to do many things we don’t normally do”

“We are not comfortable speakers, but the last few months have caused us to do many things we don’t normally do” explained GmbH’s Serhat Isik in a speech he gave alongside co-founder Benjamin Huseby, just before the brand closed men’s fashion week in Paris on Sunday. There’s always been political themes running through GmbH’s work — the duo have previously commented on gentrification and migrant identity —  but this season, they felt the need to really talk.

“For the last six years, GmbH has been about showing the beauty of our heritage, or simply put, showing our humanity, and in various ways saying that we, as children of Muslim immigrants in Europe, are not terrorists,” added Huseby, who is of Pakistani heritage but grew up in Norway (Isik is German with Turkish roots).

Wearing keffiyehs and standing behind a podium before their show started, Isik and Huseby talked about the dangers of rising Islamophobia and Antisemitism, and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, a release of all hostages and a free Palestine (you can watch their speech in full on Instagram, and read a transcript of it on Dazed as well).

The Chilling Effect

Fashion brands have been talking more and more about social issues in recent years. But when it comes to October 7 and Gaza, the industry has been pretty much silent — your Instagram might be flooded with content on it, but as a recent Business of Fashion report explained, “few brands see an upside in wading into the debate around the war in Gaza.” 

GmbH’s call for peace and an end to the occupation might seem pretty ordinary, but as we’ve seen in the past few months, there are very real consequences for people who speak up for Palestine, even as the death toll in Gaza spirals to 25,000. That’s especially true in Germany — as Huseby pointed out during GmbH’s speech, “we have seen in the last months dozens of cancellations of artists, writers and musicians for not aligning with German state policy.”

Rapper Mykki Blanco, DJ Arabian Panther and folk band Lankum have all been dropped from club and festival appearances after expressing support for Palestine. Masha Gessen, a Jewish writer whose grandfather was murdered by the Nazis, was almost stopped from receiving the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought after they compared the experience of Palestinians living in Gaza to that of Jews in Nazi ghettos. Just last week, Marione Ingram, a Holocaust survivor, criticized Germany’s climate of censorship after her series of talks in Hamburg were postponed.

More broadly, protests across Germany calling for a ceasefire have been forbidden or violently shut down — even when organized by Jewish groups — while cops have beaten up protestors just for holding Palestinian flags. Recently, the Berlin Senate Department for Culture tried to implement legislation that would effectively ban artists from receiving state funding if they had criticized Israel.

All of this is to say that it is not easy for anyone with a public platform to express solidarity with Palestine, even as the bodies of children are pulled from rubble, starving women give birth in refugee camps and the Israeli military drops some of its most powerful bombs on areas designated for civilians. And the stakes are especially high in Germany, where GmbH is based. 

If you’re used to seeing brands support progressive causes, their silence on the war in Gaza is intimidating. And more broadly, the constant deplatforming creates what’s known as a “chilling effect”, where people feel too scared to speak their minds. It’s especially complicated in the workplace (will there be trouble if your boss sees that you went to a demo?) and for freelance creatives, who have a lot to lose if jobs get canceled. And as Isik and Huseby pointed out, the risk of speaking up is much higher for minorities. 

The climate of fear makes it seem like Palestinian solidarity is a niche issue, but opinion polls across the world show strong public support for a ceasefire. And why should it be controversial to criticize the oppression of Palestinians, when human rights organizations and the United Nations have been condemning the illegal Israeli occupation for decades? That’s why GmbH’s speech is so significant — by calling for peace and a free Palestine, Isik and Huseby are saying what so many of us are thinking. The only difference is they were brave enough to put it front and center at one of the world’s biggest fashion weeks.

A New Mentality

At times, it feels like fashion is a parallel universe — a place where brands make million-dollar bags and even the invitation to a show is a status symbol — but we’re reaching a point where younger people in the industry refuse to be quiet about the issues they care about. As I wrote toward the end of last year, fashion might be in a creative dead end, but it’s also a space for us to come to terms with the world’s many dreadful crises. 

GmbH’s fashion week speech is just one example of the changing mentality that’s emerging in the industry. As we speak, over 400 workers at Conde Nast, the parent company of Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair, have walked out in protest at the company’s planned layoffs. Brands, influencers and environmental organizations have united behind the Fashion Act, an ambitious piece of legislation that would create the legal framework for a truly sustainable industry (more on the Act and why I’m supporting it here).

Congratulations to Serhat and Benjamin for their show (the clothes were great, btw!), and for using their platform to call for peace in the Middle East and a free Palestine. They’ve taken a big risk by speaking up, and they deserve to be heard.