Blog Two- Heroin Chic in the Media

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“To me, photography is about showing us things we don’t normally see, getting as close as you can to real life.” –Corrine Day, Fashion photographer (Martin, 2010)

In 1993, Corrine Day was able to capture that look of real life in British Vogue. The spread, titled “Under-Exposed”, featured Kate Moss clad in barely there pastel clothing. Moss had shown up to the shoot teary eyed fresh from a fight with her then boyfriend, which in turn, allowed Day to capture the feeling of vulnerability in her images. These images became some of the most reproduced ones of the editorial as well as some of the most iconic images from the 90’s.

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Not only was Kate Moss stirring up talk with her appearance in Under-Exposed but also in the most recent Calvin Klein advertisements. Like I said in my previous post, Klein and Moss had already teamed up in the previous year and created controversy when Moss (then 17) posed topless and straddled a much older Mark Wahlberg. In 1993, the advertisements for Klein’s cologne Obsession were under fire.

The Obsession ads featured Kate looking very frail. So frail that people were starting to ask “how thin is too thin?” The television advisement for Obsession highlights Moss’s bones in simple yet revealing clothing as she is seen repeating “obsession.” The music played in the background adds some dark vibes to the mix, thus giving off the feeling of heroin chic. Kate also posed nude for the ads that filled magazines. Critics complained that these images were portraying and promoting heroin chic. 

Check out Kate in the 1993 Calvin Klein Obsession Ad here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCqZp43vRpA

While Calvin Klein is often the designer that comes to mind when reflecting back on heroin chic, he is not the only one to showcase the trend.  An editorial for The Face done in 1997 shows a strung out Chloe Sevigney lying on a messy bedroom floor next to a stack of money.

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And a shot by Davide Sorentti captures Jamie King (who at the time he was dating) in an explicit and memorable photo.  The image shows King in ripped up leggings, sprawled out on a couch with posters of rockers who had died of abuse hanging above her.

Like all things, there were people who loved the heroin chic look and others who hated it. Drug prevention groups, as well as parents, were so appalled by the latest trend that they organized a boycott. Parents believed that Calvin Klein had betrayed them in a “misguided and dangerous effort to glamorize heroin addiction to appeal to adolescents” (Harold, 1999). Klein understood that people were upset but stated that he, as well as other fashion labels, were looking at it from a creative angle and that it was misconceived as being a way to promote drug use.

Do you believe that Calvin Klein betrayed parents and the youth culture? Or do you agree with him and the others and believe that it was all in innocence out of the creative perspective? 

Sources:

Akbar, A. (2006). Photograph that inspired “heroin chic” is selected for ultimate fashion show. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/photograph-that-inspired-heroin-chic-is-selected-for-ultimate-fashion-show-423542.html

The Christian Science Monitor. Boycott groups: Klein ads carry scent of 'heroin chic'. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/1996/1025/102596.us.us.5.html/%28page%29/2

Harold, C. L. (1999). Tracking heroin chic: The abject body reconfigures the rational argument. Argument and Advocacy 36, 65-79.
Martin, D. (2010).  Corinne Day, photographer of Kate Moss, is dead. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/world/europe/02day.html?_r=0