“Oops”: Vogue Italia‘s Slave Earrings

August 31st, 2011 by Joseph

I so want to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, this isn’t their first language. Ignore the fact that it appeared in Italian as well. But, this is the same team that came up with mainstream fashion’s first all black issue. And they also started Vogue Black, even though I side-eye the name a little bit. I was talking to Sexual Correspondent Andrea Plaid about this, and she bought up something rather interesting:

“Vogue Italia is doing the post-racial mulitple-oppression sell: under the guise of thinking they’re being all ‘We did the Black Issue, so we’re cool in doing this’ using the myriad of oppressions of women of color to sell some damn gold-tone hoop earrings named after…WoCs’ oppression! And that oppression, in many cases, melded sexual oppression (Antebellum US, the Japanese and Korean “comfort women,” etc.) This, coming from the magazine whose brand is all about the sexy framed as stylishness.”

Though they may not deserve it, as a gesture of good faith, I took a peek around Vogue Italia’s trends section. Maybe this was just a one-off terrible mistake. And I found another post about… Jungle Bracelets. My first inclination was to shout “Why!?!” But, false alarm, as I read, there was nothing really- “…manchettes in python for a night marked by tribal rhythms,” huh? “Turn your evenings into “jungle nights” characterized by tribal music, wild dancing and a bit of aesthetic rebellion,” you say?

Less malevolent, sure. But I’m uncomfortable anyway, and while relatively tame, is this something to be angry about? Maybe. But, to be honest, should I be bracing myself for racism on their website now? Slave Ethnic Earrings should be completely gone from the site as that “gesture of good faith.” As of Wednesday afternoon, the Ethnic Earrings post is still up, complete with the slide show.

It shouldn’t be, so let’s all just face the fuc— I mean facts. Face the facts. I’m sorry, it was a really bad translation. But I caught myself.

Image credit: Vogue Italia and Joseph Lamour

Page 2 of 2 | Previous page

Posted in We're So Post Racial, african-american, beauty, black, fashion, gender, images, magazines, media, racism, racism nostalgia, sexual stereotypes, slavery, stereotypes, white, women, women of color | 6 comments

Previous post:
Next post:

  • http://twitter.com/LaydeeTraceY Tracey !

    the slave earrings next to those jungle bracelets?

    im done

  • Anonymous

    Iman’s comment is *perfect*. She nails it.

  • http://commentarybyval.blogspot.com/ Val

    This doesn’t surprise me. Italian Vogue’s “Black” issue was about othering Black models and women. And this “Slave” earrings incident once again shows Italian Vogue is only interested in keeping Black women in our assigned place by reminding us who we really are, to them.

  • Ain’t I an African

    I wanted to comment on this but I really don’t know what to say because I just don’t get why anyone would celebrate slavery. (Yeah, yeah some wag will say they meant fashion/style slavery, blah, blah… (ok, I guess I’m commenting now)). What is it that makes some people want to hark back to the time of the Help, slavery, colonialism etc? I guess it was a time when n****** knew their place.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=12500056 Joseph Lamour

    Oh, I know Val, I know. You better believe I’m going to try my hardest to point this, and other not-rightedness out. Even though those girls bought it in Italia- I mean, Toccara alone should have become much more famous now than she is for (NSFW, but fab: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N-Z9FEpA4XI/TSNFQnL2JzI/AAAAAAAADZE/KQgm2Ur9VvE/s1600/toccara-vogue-01.jpg) those two pictures. 

  • TeakLipstickFiend

    What the hell are “ethnic earrings” anyway. Can’t they just call them hoops?