Ask Hadley: How Gay Is The Fashion Exactly?

Why are all male fashion designers gay?

David, by email

"...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..."

Hadley Freeman demolishes ye olde canard with her usual wit, gusto and sensible thingness.
From the Ask Hadley fashion problem page in The Guardian.
Now read on...
The "Teh Gays in the fashion secretly hate women" tripe trope has been puked up this year by the awful Amanda Platell in the Mail, and intellectual heavyweights, Richard & Judy in the Express.
It's a big, fat line mad Julie Burchil has been tooting for years.
Did they really all think they were saying something original, insightful and true?