DEAD ON

Vogue Italia Makes Slick Statement With Oil-Spilled Fashion

By Elizabeth C.

THE SLICK PHOTO SHOOT DEPICTING MODEL AS AN OIL-SICK, BEACHED MERMAID brilliantly reveals the Gulf spill's stain on the world's consciousness.

The provocative 24-page spread in the August issue of Vogue Italia is triggering a wave of reaction, with some suggesting that fashion photographer Steven Meisel has veered into exploitation.

Of course he has. Isn't that what fashion photography is all about?

But these images of model Kristen McMenamy lying in pools of oil, coughing for air, remind us of the travesty that's taken place in the Gulf region more vividly than all but the photos of the region's sickened birds.

And with the world's worst oil disaster already off the media's front pages, what is the crime in that?

"The message is to be careful about nature," Editor-in-Chief Franca Sozzani told the Associated Press.

She added, "There is nothing political. There is nothing social. It's only visual. We gave a message but in a visual way just to take more care about nature."

Meisel proves a picture’s worth more than thousand yammering news heads as these images evoke a guttural horror to the oil disaster.

“We can’t help but think that if this isn’t art, we don’t know what is,’’ writes Styleite’s Verena von Pfetten. And we can't help but agree.

Credit: Vogue Italia/Steven Meisel

Vogue Italia Cover by Steven Meisel