Power of Fashion
Posted by Danielle Bean in News on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 12:03 PM
Vogue India has sparked controversy recently with an August fashion spread featuring impoverished Indian people modeling clothing and accessories that are worth more than they are likely to earn in a lifetime.
The editorial spread was “not just tacky but downright distasteful” said Kanika Gahlaut, a columnist for the daily newspaper Mail Today that is based here, who denounced it as an “example of vulgarity.”
“There’s nothing “fun or funny” about putting a poor person in a mud hut in clothing designed by Alexander McQueen,” she said in a telephone interview. “There are farmer suicides here,” she said, referring to thousands of Indian farmers who have killed themselves in the last decade because of debt.
But Vogue India had a laid back response to the uproar:
Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s message to critics of the August shoot: “Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview. Vogue is about realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said. “You have to remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously,” Ms. Tanna said. “We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the world,” she said.
My first reaction to this story was one of disgust.
Listen up, I want to tell these fancy fashion editors—these are people, not props. You could at least identify your models by name instead of “lady,” “baby” or “man.” You managed to mention the $10,000 Hermès Birkin bag by name.
But then I wonder: Does it make sense to be outraged by Vogue India‘s exploitation of poverty if we are not outraged by the poverty itself?
At the very least, the obnoxious juxtaposition of wealth and poverty in these fashion photos shines a spotlight on the injustice of a world where some of us starve in dirty huts while others of us spend thousands of dollars on bejeweled handbags.
It might be “only fashion” but I think it is also a wake up call. This might not be at all be what Vogue India had in mind, but it’s hard to ignore poverty that’s “in your face” as much as it is in these fashion photos.
Though the editor insists Vogue wasn’t trying to make a statement, I think these photos can’t help but make a social statement. What’s getting people upset here? The fact that these people live in grinding poverty or the fact that fashion photos have called our attention to them?
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