Franca Sozzani, the editor in chief of Vogue Italia, likes to be controversial and in the August issue of the magazine she has run a 24-page spread of photographs inspired by the Gulf oil spill disaster.
The photographs, by Steven Meisel, feature model Kristen McMenamy lying, helpless, on a ruined beach and wearing black-feathered clothing. In some of the photographs she has black netting draped across her legs and in another there is a black feather on her lips.
Media reaction has been fast, widespread and divided:
To take just two examples, the online fashion magazine Refinery29, whilst acknowledging that the photographs are beautiful, says,
“Glamorizing this recent ecological and social disaster for the sake of "fashion" reduces the tragic event to nothing more than attention-grabbing newsstand fodder”
whilst Styleite comments,
“While the irony of using clothing worth thousands of dollars that was probably flown halfway around the world for the shoot is not lost on us, we can’t help but think that if this isn’t art, we don’t know what is" .
Vogue Italia itself says the photographs have the weight of reportage and the impact of a work of art. One outcome is certain: if Ms Sozzani's aim was to shock, she has done just that.
Do you think the pictures are thought-provoking or in bad taste?
