Fashion Week Critical of CECOT

They weren’t real prisoners, but they looked like them. These models were part of one of the most provocative shows of Paris Fashion Week, which seriously offended President Bukele. 

This performance sought to make visible what is happening in the famous CECOT prison, the MEGA maximum security prison that the Salvadoran government has turned into a symbol of its “war on gangs.”

The models didn’t walk confidently or displayed luxury: they were kneeling, their hands tied, dressed in simple white clothes, and their bodies covered in tattoos. And the man responsible was Willy Chavarría, a Mexican-born designer known for using fashion as a political act. With this show, he wasn’t selling clothes. He was staging a critique. Showing what many don’t want to see: dehumanization, mass punishment, the aesthetics of fear—Bukele’s favorite strategy for managing El Salvador.

As this show became viral, President Bukele came out to comment immediately. He said they were glorifying criminals. He posted a mocking message on X (formerly Twitter), suggesting he might send real prisoners to model in France. Elon Musk liked it.

But the question is: who glorifies whom?

The artist who denounces the violence of confinement? Or the State that displays prisoners as trophies and loves to put on a show with every action it takes to reaffirm the «security» of El Salvador.Salvador?

This was more than a parade, they used fashion as a political act that challenged what is being built in El Salvador and Latin America, through a disturbing performance that we still don’t know if it was a vindication or almost an insult, but it finally achieved its mission and that’s what we’re talking about… what do you think?