{"id":2548,"date":"2015-10-13T19:06:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T11:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/?p=2548"},"modified":"2018-06-03T15:47:07","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T15:47:07","slug":"when-fashion-spreads-are-spectacularly-tone-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/2015\/10\/13\/when-fashion-spreads-are-spectacularly-tone-deaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Refugee Chic Fashion Spread Proves a Social Commentary Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Here&#8217;s the thing about context\u2013it is vital in terms of giving perspectives\u00a0and arguments dimensions and meaning. In the case of this <a href=\"http:\/\/dangerousminds.net\/comments\/hey_lets_not_do_refugee_chic\">fashion spread<\/a> by Norbert Baksa on the current refugee exodus from Syria,\u00a0context reveals the insensitivity of view and vision. Featuring models styled like refugees yet improbably decked out in luxe wares, the spread has elicited\u00a0many an arched eyebrow. Baksa insists that he is not glamorising the\u00a0issue\u00a0and is merely trying to provoke thought about it, but his\u00a0fashion spread completely\u00a0falls flat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">This calls to mind a\u00a0spread\u00a0that Steven Meisel produced\u00a0for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vogue.it\/en\">Vogue Italia<\/a>\u00a0that was inspired by\u00a0the 2010 BP oil spill in\u00a0the Gulf of Mexico. Called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vogue.it\/en\/magazine\/cover-story\/2010\/08\/water-oil\">Water &amp;\u00a0Oil<\/a>, it\u00a0features supermodel Kristen McMenamy as\u00a0tragic yet glamorous\u00a0variations of animal life in peril due to the environmental disaster. While both photographers contend that their work is art and that they were making pertinent\u00a0expressions about the situation, they both just come off as opportunists who utilised disasters to show off their talents. Moreover, instead of creating important conversations and initiating calls to action, their works\u00a0merely come across as bids to capitalise on an unfortunate situation\u00a0and sell it as social commentary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">At the heart of these are\u00a0the failure to read the gravity\u00a0of the issues and their own medium accurately. Certainly, they have the right to express themselves through the medium of photography, but using fashion photography, with its innate associations to promoting fantasy, consumerism and luxury products trivialises and undermines the very pressing issues at hand. This is not to say that fashion photography cannot be used to make incisive social commentary, but to profit off the mere replication of a disaster&#8217;s imagery? It requires\u00a0a bit more thought, surely.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>Image Credit:<\/strong><br \/>\nPhotograph\u00a0from &#8220;Der Migrant&#8221; by Norbert Baksa from <a href=\"http:\/\/dangerousminds.net\">Dangerous Minds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When fashion spreads are spectacularly tone-deaf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[18,21,25,34,35,39],"class_list":["post-2548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-art","tag-culture","tag-fashion","tag-photography","tag-politics","tag-social-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/10\/hungarian1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TvUL-F6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3351,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions\/3351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portmanteau.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}