Tacky & Tasteless
Friday, October 3, 2008 at 01:17PM I'm not sure I get the NYT's approach to this truly tasteless spread in Vogue India which featured impoverished Indians wearing outrageously expensive fashion items.
a child from a poor family modeled a Fendi bib, which costs about $100.
Perhaps not surprisingly, not everyone in India was amused.
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 byAlexander McQueen, she said in a telephone interview. “There are farmer suicides here, for God’s sake” she said, referring to thousands of Indian farmers who have killed themselves in the last decade because of debt.
I hoped maybe they were just being stupid and ironic . But no they really do have their head up their arses.
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.
Since they featured the article, maybe the NYT would condemn their crass stupidity. Nope. This is the best they could come up with:
The juxtaposition between poverty and growing wealth presents an unsavory dilemma for luxury goods makers jumping into India: How does one sell something like a $1,000 handbag in a country where most people will never amass that sum of money in their lives, and many are starving? The answer is not clear cut, though Vogue’s approach may not be the way to go.
Yes and how does one pay one of the poor people modelling the gear they featured in the spread that would have cost tens of thousands with Kate and co not to mention image rights? They don't is the answer. None of the poverty stricken models received a penny.
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Reader Comments (7)
I'm thinking this is the kind of thing that led the aristos to the guillotine some time ago.
Exploiting the poor. Simple as that.
"though Vogue’s approach may not be the way to go."
What would we do without words of wisdom like this from the NYT?
Maybe these poor folks could borrow the money for these fashions from a sub-prime lender?
Wait a minute!
We'll get Jimmie "peanut farmer" Carter, his boy companion "Slick" Willie Clinton and their friend and confidant Barack "Hussein" Obama on the case.
Heavens knows, they know all about sub-prime lending. After all they wrote the rules and made the profits.
None of the poverty stricken models received a penny
When I hear things like that, I want to reach for a revolver.
Quite apart from the 'tacky and tasteless' side to this, doesn't it say much about the people who actually buy this stuff from these purveyors of so-called, 'fashion', and of Vogue itself?
That they are prepared to pay so much for so little, constantly evokes amazement at their gullibility, and all to impress others of like mentality!
"fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it off and make it look beautiful,” she said...
Si I guess they are going to start selling thousands of these designer outfits to poor Indians for a few rupees then ?