This photo from Paris Vogue doesn’t offend me, but the philosophy behind it does.
Are you surprised that it was shot by Tom Ford and styled by Carine Roitfeld? All that’s missing is their good friend Terry Richardson, whose last pictorial featuring Crystal Renn had her stuffing a huge squid down her throat.
Is it the mandate of high fashion editorials to shock and provoke? Carine Roitfeld thinks so. She complains that while her magazine has always pushed boundaries, she now feels constricted by “political correctness.”
“What I can see is that now, the censoring is bigger than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago. I think we have less freedom. Today some pictures [from past issues of Vogue Paris] would not even be publishable. It’s not just about the nudity, but when you talk about things politically, the military, kids, it would all be politically incorrect and not publishable today. We have to fight to keep this un-politically correct attitude of French Vogue, but it’s more and more difficult to be able do that. You cannot smoke, you cannot show arms, you cannot show little girls, because everyone now is very anxious not to have problems with the law. Everything we do now is like walking in high heels on the ice, but we keep trying to do it.”
How annoying! She can’t show little girls because those damn laws get in her way! No wonder she maintains a close friendship with Terry Richardson, even going out of her way to be photographed arm in arm with him right after stories of his assaults on young models hit the internet.
As for Tom Ford, of course he’s a genius and we’d all like to sleep with him. Still, his defense of his pal Richardson was absurd. Both men live in a world where women’s bodies are less than commodities and getting your dick out is just small talk.
Nothing and no one can topple this Axis of Evil. If the three of them were caught barbecuing kittens at a Manhattan dinner party, it would be hailed as naughty fun that we proles are too uptight to understand.
I really do like fashion, and occasionally I like porn. I just don’t want them combined. Not because it’s shocking, but because like the photo above, it’s pretentious desensitizing crap.
took me look at the picture for a minute, then reading the post, and then going back to the picture to look at the clothes to notice it. does this mean i’m incredibly desensitized or just really really tired?
Funnily enough I buy fashion magazines because I want to see fashion. Why would I want to see the photo above in a clothes magazine? It isn’t art and it isn’t fashion. If Carine really wanted to do something different, Vogue should stop taking on so many advertisers who they then have to slavishly please. Blaming ‘political correctness’ (rather than corporate greed) is a bit of a pathetic cop-out.
That picture just seems “art-school” to me. It shows nothing, it says nothing new or interesting, in fact it evokes no response from me except to think someone is trying too hard.
the redeeming feature is the cute little male model butt. if only carine would exploit her own children/child/vladimiro the dour undead hipster
you might like vladimiro too…he’s a professional curator
Actually it looks like a 6th form project just with better clothes and lightening and with none of the verve imparted by someone of 17 or 18.
Sister Wolf, to say this post is the best critique of growing concern amongst many of us in the fashion industry hardly does justice to the fact you have highlighted the pertinacious culture pervading fashion photography and styling (currently).
Bless their poor oppressed little hearts.
Wait – you mean there’s real oppression in the world – that’s not about stopping people taking ‘challenging’ photos of frocks?
I wish they’d all wake the feck up and get some perspective.
I started to write a considered response to the absurd Carine Roitfeld quotation, but you know what? I’m just so tired of their crap I can’t be bothered. There’s a place in hell for her and her friends.
I didnt even see the bloke between her legs till I read all the comments and looked at the pic again…..
what am I supposed to be wanting to buy here?
I dont understand….but then there is nothing to understand – its shit.
I hate that editorial so much – I hate that we’re even talking about it. Skinny girl in a padded cell with drip bag and rhinoplasty bandages. WTF?
I took too long to notice the 3rd person too… mostly because the picture is so blah. It’s not art, it’s not aspirational, it’s not even thought provoking… what is the point? I can’t see why any designer would want their clothes used in this shoot. Dull.
I must say though, perhaps we should let them do their ‘controversial’ photo shoots, but with the proviso that they must all provide an essay explaining the thought processes behind it. They’d all (Richardson etc) soon be exposed as frauds and idiots.
Sam – I didn’t see him either until I found myself asking why the hell they had given her a vagina toupe. Innocent – me?
Maybe Vouge isn’t a fashion magazine – maybe it’s a decades long art installation and we’ve all just been missing the point. On the other hand it could be the product of people doing stupid, selfish things in a pathetic attempt to avoid facing the fact that they have grown up and become adults with jobs (No – I was going to be so different……..!)
An important and well written post. The whole ‘you’re just a prude’ defence if you criticise ill-judged photoshoots such as this one, is just getting tiresome and meaningless. I love a bit of sauce, but I object to full on misogyny or ‘hospital chic’ or whatever they’re peddling this week….
I just looked through the whole editorial elsewhere (here, if anyone’s interested http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleybaccam/pussy-west-plastic-surgery-in-vogue-paris-nsf), and I actually think that the shots where Crystal has been made-up to appear to have had bad plastic surgery have something quite interesting about them, although I can’t say i enjoy the general a(n)esthetic of them much (whose decision was it to light these as though they were by a first-year fashion photography student?)
The one that Sister’s posted, however, doesn’t really have a redeeming feature. It’s tiresome through and through – dull composition, dull execution, dull idea.
I think this photo is crap, I think this styling is crap, I think it looks tired and ugly and uninspiring and uninspired. I think it’s the worst kind of pretentious and I think it’s pathetic in it’s attempt to shock and I also think that the people working on this shot have been blinded by their own supposed awesomeness – there’s no other explanation for letting this half-assed seen-before photo pass. What especially offends me is the lighting of this photo – it’s really horrible.
I agree with Dave C – it’s not even worth my time to dissect that Roitfeld quote, because it is just beyond stupid.
However, I also need to leave something nice here to balance my negative comment. I think you’d like this photographer SW, it’s fashion but it’s also much much more. I’m crazy about him even though I’m not usually a fan of the super-polished, almost sterile look in photography:
http://two-eyes.com/
I had to scroll over that picture a few times before I realised that there were two male models in it. What is it even selling? Fashion photography has become a platform for weirdos to air their strange fantasies, not just a place to showcase clothes, art, and talent. It’s not about clothes any more, it’s just about peoples’ weird agendas.
All looks very dated to me.
Can I get an “Amen” for Sister Wolf? I’m bored with these “edgy” editorials. What the hell am I supposed to be lusting after? The clothes have become secondary to the juvenile shock tactics. Harumphf.
XXX
Suzanne
The 1st thing I saw; bottoms of stilettos, 2nd, mummy face – no interest – turn page.
the whole “plastic surgery” type of fashion editorial is just old and boring at this point. It’s not shocking to me, it’s just unoriginal and uncreative.
I do want a diet coke now though.
The photo is pretty lame. Like it’s trying too hard.
I totally agree about the kitten BBQ. Great post though it kind of depresses me and makes me feel helpless.
What the hell is this photo. My first reaction was, oh look, a girl with a bandaged face wearing expensive things. Then I looked a little closer and realized OH MY GOSH thats a person between her legs…
Its not even remotely sexy. First of all, is that a man between her legs? I’d imagine someone with a fetish for deranged people would totally get off on this.
http://www.lefacade.blogger.com
Sister Wolf—I agree with you. Porn and fashion dont work well.
oh god i didn’t notice the person between her legs…wow
In your dreams Carine!
The photo is attempting to do so much that I find it boring. Surgery, sex, whatevs, next trend please….
I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s a bit of an image overload. Too much weirdness in one picture.
Witch Moma and I had the exact same reaction. I guess we are too plebian to recognize “true art.”
Not shocking, not stylish, just shit.
Ugh. I also didn’t realize what the the vagina toupee was (as BethUK so aptly described it) until reading the comments. This is like a never ending game of “What’s wrong with this picture?”
What is being sold . I can’t imagine looking at this and finding one piece of clothing and saying that I must have it.
I did think that Crystal Renn looked like Kim Kardashian in this and that makes me laugh.
censoring being limiting??????????? i would thank god with all ive got that some part of my mind is still untouched and pure and at peace like a tender normal human teen brain thanks to it. have we lost our decency over the generations or what?
I thought she was wearing some kind of funny furry skirt at first!
I’m stiffly opposed to censoring and the up-their-own-arse moral police, and will admit to having a good chortle at Vogue Paris’s “bad mummy” editorial featuring Lily Donaldson a while ago, but what would it take for Carine Roitfeld to ‘edit’ boring, banal images like this one out of her magazine?
I don’t know what they’re selling here- I certainly don’t want the clothes, the sex, or the (apparent) injuries.
I thought it was a dog between her legs.
I have no idea what the fuck any of it means.
I feel sorry for the kid though.
Yeah, it looks like something composed by some naughty 10-yr-olds with twenty minutes before one of ’em’s parents get home.
I’m surprised there’s no blood.
Andra, I thought that it’s a little yorkie! Poor Carine, I guess she couldn’t stick a little girl or maybe an Uzi in the middle of it, that’s really too bad. Bad picture, and it’s beyond pretentious. I remember a picture in American Vogue a few years ago – a dead plucked chicken with open empty body cavity, on it’s back, with little black high heel shoes on its’ spread legs. Readers were canceling their subscriptions. As for Tom Ford – no, I don’t want to sleep with him, with the oily Marc Jacobs neither.
I swear, Vogue Paris is just out to annoy. A lot of the styling isn’t interesting so they make up for it with *shocking* editorials. Boring.
I wonder why there is this clamoring to be “offensive”. I put that word in quotes because that is their intention but the message just comes across trashy. Saw this editorial and was pretty disappointed. When they worked together before they did great work…but I guess showing arms and little girls was a big part of their subject matter before…(NOT)
I’m opposed to censoring, but I am so, so sick of “shock art”. I’m not going to argue about whether or not fashion magazine editorials are, or should be, art. But come on. There’s no longer any skill involved in creating art; it’s all about pissing on a crucified fetus stuck in somebody’s sphincter and marketing the hell out of yourself.
Art can be shocking, can challenge established norms. But if the only yardstick is whether or not it IS shocking, and whether it makes a pack of black-clad over-sophisticated hipsters cream themselves over the transgressiveness of it all, while becoming completely inaccessible and preferably offensive to most other people, then I think the point has been completely missed.
Gross. I didn’t notice the clam diver either.
Actually, the more I look and read, the more I think Carine, Tom Ford et al don’t give a shit what we ‘civilian ‘ readers think. If anything we’re seen as just a load of puritanical milksops that stop them making art.
Awww.
I’m not offended by the image – but I am offended by this kind of wannabe more cutting-edge-than-thou attitude. They are less concerned with what we think than what other folks in the biz think.
We’re just the people who are supposed to buy their magazines, finance crap like this and applaud it as art. And if we don’t then there’s something wrong with us for not sharing their vision ?
Feck that.
The feeling that I get from this ad is that they want us to believe that the girl has some kind of power. She has the power to hold the remote while being satisfied by a male and she is no longer the object but the one in power. She gets to choose who she wants, the one on the left or the other one. The fact that she has sex while being clothed means she has power and careless and means it is the quick sex type of relation, they just came from the door. The surgery means suffering but in this case, when we are sick we don’t have the power to have sex, but this ad wants us to feel joy and explore all possibilities, because after the plastic surgery, we get to be beautiful….this is deshumanizing to humans in general, men and women, the males in this ad are submitted to her, one is performing oral sex while the other is just there in case she needs him…very degrading to men and women…
I could not put it better than Katharine has… exactly my thoughts but way more articulate.
Katharine has done a sterling job and I quite like Candy’s unpicking but actually I’m sure Candy is more thoughtful than those that created the muff diving/bandaged mess. I think the only winner is the product placement diet coke – we all know it is can of diet coke – OMG they sold out to Coca Cola – bunch of sanctimonious product placement gits! Censorship v Coke – oh let just get a can out. If Carine was truly anti censorship she would have undertaken an fashion editorial paying homage to Aung San Suu Kyi and recreated her staple look in an avant garde fashion.
i mean, they did it. they achieved their goal of desensitizing me to sex and nudity. i’m no longer offended, interested or even fucking looking anymore. so many tits out these days… at first i was like, “oh dude, tits!” now if they don’t put a shirt on a model i start to wonder if they just didn’t have enough clothes for the entire shoot, so… tits. and then this kind of stuff. it’s sort of sex, i guess. dude kinda looks like he just faceplanted, though. i don’t know if the other two know he’s there. honestly i started reading teen vouge (no more elle girl boo hoo) just to be sure to see lots of clothes on a bunch of girls. or… truthfully… i read fashion blogs now if i want to see some girls wearing clothes. because when fashion with a capital F keeps peddling this “shocking” “masochistic” “edgy” “artistic” “provoking” stuff so they don’t have to dress a model, i. stop. buying.
This looks like ‘poormans’ David Lachapelle.
My eyes were first drawn to the huge shoes. Then I wondered what everyone was reacting to…realising that furry triangle was actually a head.
Pictures like this are so uninteresting, don’t shock anyone over the age of 14, and are deeply outmoded.
Like the rest of the people commenting…if sex sells? What is being sold?
Yeah, the photo definitely has a yucky vibe. Shock factor gimmicks usually evoke mild indifference for me. I refuse to respond. Her comment about little girls is nauseating though. I wonder if she’s aware that nearly 2 million children are currently being held as sex slaves around the world? Even here in the US. Two huge slavery rings were busted right here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The average child (boys & girls) held in sexual bondage today is 12 years old. Now THAT makes me so mad I could spit fire. If anyone wants to read more about this injustice, check out International Justice Mission.
First thought: Chanel “yeti” handbag.
Second thought: Small animal?
Third thought: Oh. Wow. Judging by the expressions on her face and Captain Underpants’s face, Ron Burgundy fails at that game.
Katharine really nailed it. Now, why this kid in the picture (he looks at best 16) looks so utterly, absolutely bored? Why so many so-called “fashion icons” are so utterly, absolutely full of shit?
Going against the grain here, I like this picture. Alot. The aloofness of the model in her own little dominated heaven, the boy toy by her side and.. elsewhere. She looks totally in control with her diet coke, the bandages might as well be a crown.
And why does there have to be an explanation for anything in this photo, really? The boy toy looks bored.. perhaps too drunk, maybe been up all night doing whatever to appease the plastic surgery victim.. who knows? I do believe this is where the “imagination” part of the art comes in where you – the observer – perhaps gets to draw their own conclusion instead of being TOLD what to think? Perhaps?
I fucking love this picture. I do not believe the picture was trying to “shock” anyone, but I don’t know the artists real intent. Aside that, kudos to all of you whom think they “survived an attempt at being shocked; how blasé.” It’s okay to see a woman in a powerful position. If art is supposed to be about everyone being treated fairly and not objectified, well.. burn your art history books.
I’ll stop looking at my soap box before I stand on it. Sister Wolf, thanks for posting the picture. I never would have been able to see what I am up against had it not been posted!