Fashion: How Far is Too Far?

written by Houke de Kwant on June 17, 2012

You might have come across one or more of these ads these weeks as they got a lot of attention on all sorts of blogs. Online Bulgarian magazine 12‘s latest beauty editorial called ‘Victim of Beauty’ shows photos of models who are victims of abuse. The editorial was shot by photographer Vasil Germanov and makeup on the six models was done by Daniela Avramova. The question I asked in the title of this post is, how far is too far? 12Mag clearly got a lot of attention via this campaign. I didn’t know them before and clicked through some of their other projects to see what they make, so that sounds like a win for them. But much traffic doesn’t mean good traffic. A lot of the visitors are angry, they don’t agree with this kind of advertising. Some see it as the glorification of violence against women dressed up as ‘art’. It is demoralizing to women and offensive to anyone who has ever experienced violence. And I think that’s a good point. In my opinion, this is too far. One visitor mentions that these photos could be good, if they’re used for a campaign against violence against women. What do you think? Is this too far?