vogue photo shoot
(grabbed from ghosthacked)
fashion state of emergency
on the one hand, i was slightly turned on by the fantasy of it all. Very visceral, and yet very safe since you know it’s staged. As I was watching it though, I was bothered by the extent to which women were portrayed as objects to be dominated. Then I realized that it was an italian photo shoot, and it all made sense. If you notice, the women are NEVER dominating the men. Their expressions are also disturbingly docile. Overall, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and again reminded me of all the things I disliked about Italy.
Does it make you want to buy haute couture? Would it make anyone say? “Wow, that woman’s taking the boot to the face with such aplomb and she just looks devestatingly beautiful in that satin number.” Isn’t advertising supposed to invoke a sense of envy and desire? Who’d want to ‘be’ these vacuous women?
September 14th, 2006 at 11:15 am
But wouldn’t non-docile expressions on a mannequin be disturbing?
Are these images of mannequins or of women, even if it has taken women to play the roles of the mannequins? They do not eat, they are posed by others, and they exist to hang clothes upon. It always seems an inconvenience to sweeping segments of “fashion” that only people look truly believably like unbelievable people. A photo shoot that is not decadent, disturbing, and featuring people of form and action alien to normal life would seem… unfashionable. It seems entirely in keeping that a photo shoot depicts a sequence of forceful and crude seductions into the appreciation of violence and suffering, when the marketing of fashion has long been tied to seducing the public into appreciating violently impractical content atop forms only achievable (for the majority of the population) through insufferably unnatural paths.
Or I could just be bitter because I know I’ll never fit in any of those
September 15th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
exactly!! It is just too disturbing. If anything I’d want the hardcore outfits worn by the soldiers
September 17th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Though I agree that the ideal figure of modern day is disgustingly thin, I doubt they would ever do a photo shoot with women posed with fingers down their throats inside a dirty bathroom stall (or would they…?). The actualization of such and idea would have many people up in arms.
These photos not only embrace the idea of the police state and accepts it as an inalterable reality, it acknowledges and glorifies the oppression of women.
September 17th, 2006 at 8:28 pm