A promotional video for Louis Vuitton's fall/winter 2013 collection has sparked controversy for its "prostitution chic" angle.
Produced by Love magazine, the clip features models sauntering down dark alleys in the collection's négligées, nighties and fur coats while soliciting passersby. Cara Delevingne and Georgia May Jagger are among the scantily-clad ladies featured in the film, leaning into car windows and even flipping the middle finger. The street shots cut back and forth with backstage footage of designer Marc Jacobs himself styling the runway models.
This glamorization of prostitution has not sat very well with women's rights groups in France. “It’s a disturbing video because it combines two different worlds -– the refinement of haute couture and the violence of the sex trade,” a representative of "Osez le Feminisme" told Le Parisien.
A piece in France's Libération mirrored this sentiment: "What indecency, ignorance and indifference to play with the fantasy of porn chic: the social condition of the vast majority of prostitutes has nothing enviable, nothing fancy, nothing happy about it."
Inna Shevcenko, a member of the protest group Femen, told The Local: “Once again, naked women are used to create a buzz or sell clothes.”
So what does the fashion house have to say? According to The Local, Louis Vuitton has "distanced itself" from the video, since it wasn't actually made by the brand. During the fashion show earlier this month, however, Jacobs told Grazia that the collection was aimed at the woman with "an attitude of getting dressed up only to find the most glamorous destination is one's own hotel room." We'll leave that up to you to decipher...
What do you think about this latest controversy? Are you appalled by Love's attempt at "prostitution chic"? Watch the NSFW video (there's some nudity) below and sound off in the comments.
UPDATE: Fashionista obtained a statement from Katie Grand, the editor of Love: “We are very sorry for any offence caused. It was certainly not our intention.”
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