Homeless-Inspired Fashion: Cruel or Kitsch?

Walk into any trendy Hollywood boutique and you'll probably find jeans by Victoria Beckham, shoes by Gwen Stefani, and a line of clothing inspired by a homeless man from the streets of Hollywood.

Huh?

That's right. Mocking the homeless is, like, très chic.

In 2007, three twenty-something Beverly Hills entrepreneurs created the Crazy Robertson line of clothing. Shirts, sweatshirts, and wallets carry Warhol-inspired screenprints of a man named John Wesley Jermyn. For the past 20 years, Jermyn has suffered from schizophrenia and has been chronically homeless on the streets of Beverly Hills. 

As unlikely as it seems, Jermyn has become an LA icon. He earned the nickname "Crazy Robertson" for his colorful rollerskating, aerobic-inspired garb, and his incomprehensible rants on Robertson Boulevard (which, according to the London Times, is a trendy shopping area second only to Rodeo Drive as a "mecca for conspicuous Beverly Hills consumption"). 

Have a look at the clothing line and the man who inspired it:

The Crazy Robertson 08' Fashion Line from Crazy Robertson on Vimeo.

According to the London Times, this is not the first time homeless people have been exploited in the name of fashion:

Seven years ago John Galliano, then chief designer for Christian Dior, raised eyebrows when he showed a line of clothes made from silk printed with newspaper pages. Galliano said at the time the idea had occurred to him after he saw homeless people using papers as blankets as they slept under bridges over the Seine in Paris.

Several years before, Kosuke Tsumura, a young Japanese designer, produced a transparent nylon coat with 40 zippered pockets that could be stuffed with newspapers as extra padding. The coat was part of a line Tsumura called "final home" - emergency clothes should their owner fall on hard times.

Now this is not meant to be a post that analyzes the business plan behind the "Crazy Robertson" clothing line. I don't think it matters what percentage of the proceeds Jermyn receives from this venture (but if youre wondering, it's five percent, although Jermyn prefers not to deal with money) or how involved he is in the creative process (the designers claim he signs off on each design). That's not my point.

The way I see it, there isn't much of a difference between the premise of the "Crazy Robertson" and Bumvertising (the winner of the award for "Worst Idea of 2008"). Where Bumvertising is derogatory and unscrupulous in their exploitation of homeless people, "Crazy Robertson" has made mocking a mentally ill homeless man fashionable for rich Beverly Hills hipsters. Although each of these businesses pay their homeless targets a pithy amount of money, the harm they cause to the larger battle against homelessness is much more damaging.

One of the biggest hurdles we face in the fight to end homelessness is combatting stereotypes. Most people learn everything they know about homelessness by what they see on the streets. Yet, many of the more challenging problems lie with the "unseen" homeless: youth, families, those identifying as LGBTQ, veterans, and the working poor. Business ventures such as "Crazy Robertson" and Bumvertising simply reinforce largely inaccurate stereotypes, making the challenge of changing our nation's perception of homelessness much more difficult to overcome. 

[Photo: John Wesley Jermyn, the inspiration for the "Crazy Robertson" line of clothing, played baseball for Pepperdine before sliding into mental illness.]

So, just for a minute, forget about the pop-culture status of the "Crazy Robertson" and consider the man behind the novelty. Last year, Jermyn's sister spoke with the Wall Street Journal about her brother's plight into mental illness and his new and unlikely status as a fashion inspiration:

Mr. Jermyn's slide into homelessness is a painful subject for his sister Beverly. And so is the clothing deal. She believes "The Crazy Robertson" founders are exploiting her brother's condition to build their brand. "I think these guys saw an opportunity and they took it," she says. "I am not happy with the arrangement."

Ms. Jermyn, who lives close to the alley where Mr. Jermyn sleeps, says her brother has a form of schizophrenia. He refuses to take medication, she says, despite suffering from fits of shouting and cursing. In the years since his condition began deteriorating in the late 1970s, "he slipped through my fingers like sand," says Ms. Jermyn, 64, who manages facilities for Oracle Corp.

In the late 1980s she testified in court in a proceeding to force her brother to seek help, but psychological evaluators found him "lucid and gracious," according to Ms. Jermyn. She has made countless attempts to provide him with shelter and therapy, and she still visits him twice a week with food. She also pays for his cellphone and collects his Social Security checks on his behalf.

So while mocking the homeless may be as easy as slipping on a trendy tee, remember that this will do nothing to advance the larger movement to end homelessness as we know it.