The Line Between Fashion & Exploitation: Miu Miu Campaign

 

 

Some friends of mine recently posted on social media about the current Miu Miu Spring 2015 campaign, disturbed by the images of what appear to be very young girls in sexually suggestive poses modeling handbags and clothing items.

 

 

 

 

It caused several comments from people I know and respect.

 

“So Miu Miu is using this image to sell shoes or something. My first thought when I saw this was it looked like a scene from the movie Taxi Driver, where Jodie Foster plays an underage trafficking victim. Regardless of the age of the model, they all knew what this looks like when they decided to use it in their campaign. Maybe we should tell them we’re not ok with it. I did. Thank you to Anya Silver for bringing this to our attention and Josephine Larkin Bennett for finding the link to their Facebook page.

I went to the ad campaign site, there’s more than one image that appears pulled from a backpage ad for an underage trafficking victim. By the way, the photo you posted actually looks worse on the ad site. The room looks like it’s unfurnished and only has one purpose. Awful.” – David Cooke, District Attorney

 

” Time for a feminist rant: while some designers, like Celine and Dolce e Gabbana have made a point of using grown women in their ads, Miu Miu’s latest ad shows a girl who looks about 14 lying in bed, in a shirt cropped right below her breasts, looking up at an unseen person. It’s a gross sexualization of a submissive young girl (regardless of the model’s age), and with the explosion of sex-trafficking, it’s irresponsible. Photographer Stephen Meisel is a weasel.” – Anya Silver, Professor of English & Poet

 

Both of the people I have quoted are also highly involved with the anti-sex trafficking project at Mercer University. This is a project which I also support and have been working on-and-off over the years chronicling and writing about. Sex-trafficking is a tremendous problem in our country, with Atlanta just being up the road and it’s airport (at least at one time) was the highest hub of child sex trafficking. It’s disgusting.

 

But I’m conflicted, is this really the conscious portrayal of sexual submission- which one could assume is not by consent, or is it simply the artistic rendering of a photographer wanting to create an interesting photo?

 

I’ll take it a step further: I’ve had my own modeling sessions in rooms/buildings that could be interpreted to be abandoned buildings set up for the exploitation of women- if assume the same comments above are both true and could be painted across the board. And yes, in at least one of those photo sessions I was showing cleavage and lots of leg.

 

 

 

 

Is there a difference between the two photo shoots? Both mine and the Miu Miu campaign could be said to use sexuality to sell an item. For me, the reason why I choose the backdrop of a building under construction is because I liked the aesthetic of putting beautiful jewelry which could stand out against a black clothing and fishnets set up against a building not yet finished. It’s classic juxtaposition. Photographers use it frequently and it’s honestly one of my favorite ways to tell a photographic story.

 

 

 

 

The Miu Miu campaign uses a very young looking girl, and this might be the only real difference. Aside from the fact that they are actually wearing more clothes than I am! Someone in the comment threads said the girl is actually 19 years old and has posed nude in films before. So, legally she is of age. And how many times have we seen very young looking 30 year old women be mistaken to be underage? Not often but it does happen.

 

So I did some short research, which shows that this campaign features three models: Mia Goth, Imogen Poots, and Marine Vatch.

 

Mia Goth is 19 years old and her credits include the movie “Nymphomanic: II”, take that for what you will I suppose. Imogen Poots is 25 years old and is in a movie that those in my hometown should be familiar with: Need for Speed, much of it being shot in my hometown. Marine Vatch is 23 and has been quoted as saying “nudity is a costume too” in regards to her role in the movie “Young and Beautiful” as a teenage prostitute.

 

What about the idea that advertising is art?

 

You might try to argue that advertising cannot be the same thing as art. But then what of Andy Warhol’s Campbells Soup Cans? You can also be disgusted by art, but that does not always make it “not art”. I say this as the daughter of an art teacher who challenged me as a child, when I saw a piece on modern art on 60 Minutes and exclaimed “THAT-” pointing towards the image” Is NOT ‘ART'”! My mother’s response of course was, ” but what is art? Who determines that?”

 

Let’s look at Picasso, for instance. Picasso famously created works for art which could, and have, been described as pornographic. Let’s also keep in mind that in his time Picasso was not always so celebrated.

 

Am I really comparing this ad campaign to Picasso? Not exactly, more drawing a larger point here. Who determines what is art?

 

This isn’t a topic for me to broach comfortably and I feel like I’m letting down my feminist friends who expected me to go on a rant against this campaign. But I’m not sure I can in good conscience do so.

 

Let’s also address feminism. Feminism I believe would say that if a woman of age wants to pose like this for art or for any reason then who are we to censor her? We become outraged when people want to condemn celebs like Kim K and Amber Rose for posing sexually saying they are mothers and how dare they do that- the feminists’ response being “so what if they are moms?!”

 

Could Miu Miu have completed their mission of the photoshoot by perhaps being a little bit less suggestive? Yeah probably. Could the same effect have been achieved had the photos not been shot as if from the perspective of someone entering a room, potentially a man with less than desirable intentions? Possibly. Would some be just as upset if that angle, some unknown person approaching from outside the room, was not shown? I can’t answer that.

 

The real problem is that we are not acknowledging that sexual trafficking happens, that rape on campus happens, and that we aren’t doing enough to combat these problems.

 

And I have to wonder if we as a society at large were not so ignorant of widespread sexual exploitation of women- rape and slavery and more- all of it happens, but perhaps if we weren’t so ignorant of the existence of these problems then perhaps some people would not be so upset over the photo shoot. Isn’t this lack of awareness where the real problem is?

 

If we can ever address these problems in the ways that they need to be, will we really be as upset to see these images in an art form?

 

 

EDITOR’s NOTE:

I have amazing friends, and through a discussion with my friend Kate (both in public on the Southern Bon Vivant Facebook page and privately) I’ve realized there were some little things in the photo campaign by Miu Miu. Her point was that the mattress in one of the shots was what was really disturbing for her. And she pointed out that she felt like my photos were different in that I looked “confidant”. After she pointed that out, I realized in at least one of the Miu Miu photos the model looked lifeless, maybe sleepy, and on an extreme note- perhaps even drugged. This isn’t an unusual look- we see it often. Some might remember the “Heroin Chic” look of the 1990’s. The concern here is mostly the setting it’s in.

I’m still not sure if my own images look that different, but everyone has a different thought I’m sure.

-MMW

 

 

A penny for your thoughts- and my love to all y’all,

 

Molly