Opinion | Blood, Beauty and Bondage

Diversity is to the fashion industry as financial reform is to Wall Street. Public pressure demands it, Oprah likes it, and although no one dares say otherwise- most insiders really don’t give a damn.

So the high ups find inventive ways to delude consumers into overlooking the same old ideals in their editorials and advertisements. Gone are the days when a white, emancipated model could just be a white, emancipated model. Now people ask questions: Why not an ethnic model? Is she too young to look that sexy? Is it unhealthy for her hip bones to wear a bigger cup size than her tits?

The most time-proven method of creating and controlling culture is through legend and lore. Ancient Greeks used mythology to explain natural phenomena and immortalize their history. Parents rely on fairytales to teach important moral lessons.

Enter vampires. More than a trifling fad, these dark creatures are in everything from hit television to haute couture. Dior, Lanvin, Vogue Paris and many other notable fashion institutions have produced vampire-inspired content. The Vampire Facelift is the newest and hottest beauty craze.

Translucent ivory skin, eternal youth, and the thinness of someone who can really stick to a liquid diet. Sounds like Kate Moss circa the 1990s. But heroin chic isn’t PC anymore, so it’s not. Instead these ideals are marketed under the guise of fantasy.

All the models are white because that’s how vampires look. Misogyny and sadism fly because that’s just how vampires do. Underage models pass because of the need to portray eternal life. And deathly thin is in, because duh, they’re the undead.

Like clockwork no one boycotts brands, editors are spared angry letters, and Kristen Stewart lands a Vogue cover even she looks not so sure about.

Keeping outdated, racist, and body image-killing standards of beauty alive via folklore may be more subconscious than evil plot; but that doesn’t change the harmful effect it has on impressionable and often young consumers. The subject matter isn’t real, but the consequences are.

If the public is serious about promoting real bodies, protecting child models, and being able to tell Vogue from their Casper DVD, they need to hold designers, editors and producers more accountable for their content. Aspiring to emulate the dead isn’t only unnatural and unhealthy; it makes us the real suckers.

Sabrina Maddeaux