Victims of Beauty....Clever Irony or just plain stupidity??

Bulgarian fashion magazine 12 has just published what I deem as a 'totally unacceptable' beauty editorial containing nothing but portraits of models with horrific injuries.

The ironically named feature 'Victim of Beauty' was shot by photographer Vasil Germanov with special effect make-up by Daniela Avramova and hair and make-up (beauty) by Slav for Max-Factor.

Beautiful Women disfigured purely for fashion/beauty purposes

The feature shows women heavily scarred, bruised and battered looking and domestic violence charity workers have been outraged, that such images have been aloud to be published for such fashion purposes. Usually a feature of such description is usually used to highlight a make-up artists skills, or depict a look for the season, and usually aims to sell the products used or even promote the reader to emulate the look for themselves, usually encouraging that this is a look they would want to achieve? hhhmmm with this feature? I am not so sure...

What do you guys think?? I honestly think it is inappropriate to publish and/or should have at least restriction on its content (when you actually go to the website of the magazine, it does actually warn of graphic content), but trying to be unbiased, and looking it from some (weird) other way, the models could be also trying to promote, that even if you have these scars, bruises and so on...you can still look beautiful... I am not completely sold on that method.

So although the 12 editorial may be a particularly explicit example of the form, these kinds of images are nothing new....

 The above was photographed in 1974 (another beauty editorial shoot) featuring model Jerry Hall shot by Helmut Newton.

So why does the fashion industry feel that it needs to use such images? I think we all know that from editorials/advertisements/campaigns from years gone by, fashion has always tried to keep that 'edge' to try and push the boundaries with the images it presents to us.

What are these images actually saying to us though?? what is the point? for me, the images of battered, abused, women are too frequently portrayed to us in real life, for it to actually be presented to us as a piece of editorial entertainment... shes had a slap...but lovely blusher love??? who actually sees past the horribleness (didn't know what other word to use) of it all??....

(Jezebel):

 Fashion has an enduring fascination with depictions of women as the victims of violence in part because we live in a culture where roughly one-third of all women murder victims are killed by their partners, where women experience around 4.8 million domestic violence assaults and rapes every year, where nearly one-quarter of women will experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner during their lifetimes. Fashion reflects the wider culture, and ours has a lot of work to do.

So images like this...whatever next?? staged rape? murder? who knows....its all part of the weird and wonderful (not in this case for me...) world of fashion....


Further reading: Model Jezebel's reaction to this:
http://jezebel.com/5916650/fashions-ongoing-violence-against-women/gallery/1e