Vogue India recently received a lot of attention in the media, however probably not the kind the year old magazine was looking for. The magazine received a lot of flack for displaying designer bags and clothes—a Hermes handbag and a Burberry umbrella, among other items—on the poorest of India. One photo included a poor Indian woman carrying a baby wearing a hundred dollar Fendi bib; while the average person in India earns only 500 dollars each year, according to a Stanford study.
Photographers and editors alike made sure that these pictures weren’t shot in an air-conditioned studio, they were in a rural, dire background, (an unsuspecting eye might not even spot that the models were wearing the designer goods). It seems that the sad looking background and modest looking “models” were just a prop to make sure the designer items stood out and looked good.
Equally controversial is the fact that the photo “models” weren’t even named, while the designer swag was specifically identified.
“Lighten up,” editor in chief of Vogue India Priya Tanna said in a telephone interview to the New York Times. “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. But is using some of India’s poorest as props to designer goods in good taste? And the last time I checked the kind of fashion that Vogue deals in is still a privilege of the rich.
“Earlier this summer clothes designed by India's poorest and most downtrodden women - 'night-soil carriers' from the country's untouchable caste - were modeled on a New York catwalk”, said Pamela Timms a writer for The Independent. So it seems this ‘Third World Chic’ might become a trend.
Pavan K Varma, former diplomat and author of 'The Great Indian Middle Class, noted that right now “money is fashionable” in India. And Vogue India is, no doubt, an extension of that mentality. But is hyper-consumerism and high end baby bibs, that they’ll never be able to afford, what India needs?
Photographers and editors alike made sure that these pictures weren’t shot in an air-conditioned studio, they were in a rural, dire background, (an unsuspecting eye might not even spot that the models were wearing the designer goods). It seems that the sad looking background and modest looking “models” were just a prop to make sure the designer items stood out and looked good.
Equally controversial is the fact that the photo “models” weren’t even named, while the designer swag was specifically identified.
“Lighten up,” editor in chief of Vogue India Priya Tanna said in a telephone interview to the New York Times. “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. But is using some of India’s poorest as props to designer goods in good taste? And the last time I checked the kind of fashion that Vogue deals in is still a privilege of the rich.
“Earlier this summer clothes designed by India's poorest and most downtrodden women - 'night-soil carriers' from the country's untouchable caste - were modeled on a New York catwalk”, said Pamela Timms a writer for The Independent. So it seems this ‘Third World Chic’ might become a trend.
Pavan K Varma, former diplomat and author of 'The Great Indian Middle Class, noted that right now “money is fashionable” in India. And Vogue India is, no doubt, an extension of that mentality. But is hyper-consumerism and high end baby bibs, that they’ll never be able to afford, what India needs?
3 comments:
I love this blog and how it gives Vogue a chance to explain its controversial shoots.
This is pretty offensive in my opinion. they say it's not for the rich... but it is.
I found your article very good for the content, but I think it should have been more critical. The shots are pretty offensive to people and for the editor to just say lighten up was pretty shocking. I think that the photographs should have been more tasteful and maybe shot differently, such as models dressed lower class would not have been so bad. Also some information on the cultural context of the class system in India would have been insightful.
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