Riveting or racist? Purely artistic editorial or just plain offensive? I have been pondering those questions for a week, ever since I saw the photos of Lara Stone in French Vogue’s October issue. Photographer Steven Klein shot Caucasian Dutch model Lara wearing “blackface”, a term to describe dark brown makeup that I feel is offensive on it’s own. I am sure this is something you all may have already heard about. The controversy over these photos, styled by French Vogue editor Carine Roitfield herself, came to a boil last week. I however wanted to take some time to decide how I felt about it. I didn’t want to take the story and run. I wanted to investigate and then form an opinion. So investigate I did.
The first fact I had to take into consideration is that French Vogue is notorious for shock value photo spreads. You may remember the photo of a model styled to look pregnant smoking a cigarette. Even US Vogue has had it’s own headlines lately, with the photoshop massacre of it’s “Women In Hollywood” cover. The other thing I had to take into consideration is that in this same issue, they embrace Lara Stone for being curvy. She’s a SIZE 4!!! A size 4 is curvy? They are quite obviously detached from reality right now. And they need to snap out of it before they offend too many people. Think about it, there are so many gorgeous black models to pick from, such as Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Iman, Alek Wek, Liya Kebede or Chanel Iman. Why not use an actual black model? I also can’t help but wonder if this was strategically planned to boost sales. The magazine industry has been hit hard by the recession and even though it’s a pretty safe bet that French Vogue will be around for a very long time, they have had to layoff employees due to declined sales revenue. If that is in fact the case then Vogue owes Steven Klein a huge bonus because he definitely attracted priceless exposure with this provocative photo spread. That being said, the conclusion I came to is that although I think it showed extreme poor taste, I don’t believe there was any maliciousness intended.
Do you agree? Or do you feel it was offensive? Share your opinions with us.
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