Vogue puts a US$100 bib on an impoverished child.

And who says fashion magazines are insensitive and insane?

In the picture above, a toothless old woman holds a toddler in rumbled, dirty clothing, with a US$100 Fendi bib around his neck.

In another picture,a family of three squeezes onto a motorbike for their daily commute,
the mother riding without a helmet and sidesaddle in the traditional
Indian way — except that she has a Hermès Birkin bag -usually more than
US$10,000, if you can find one –  prominently displayed on her wrist.

Elsewhere, a toothless barefoot man holds a Burberry umbrella – about US$200.

Ironic? Vulgar? Barking Bloody Mad?
I’m going for all three.

And wait until you hear what the Vogue India editor says in defence of the shoot……

What? You mean you don’t see the witty irony of dressing a homeless
man who lives in a mud hut in Alexander McQueen and taking his photo
for your luxury fashion mag? Silly you.

Vogue India editor Priya Tanna’s has this to say to critics of the August
shoot:

“Lighten up,” she said in a telephone interview with the New York Times. Vogue is about
realizing the “power of fashion” she said, and the shoot was saying
that “fashion is no longer a rich man’s privilege. Anyone can carry it
off and make it look beautiful,” she said. “You have to
remember with fashion, you can’t take it that seriously,” Ms. Tanna
said. “We weren’t trying to make a political statement or save the
world,” she said.

Ohhhhhh, right. I didn’t realise it was about the POWER of fashion.
That explains everything. Where actually do you even start with
responding to the idiocy of those absurd justifications??

For a while now I’ve been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about
fashion magazines. There seems something grotesque about page after
page of $3000 shoes and $4000 handbags. I know a lot of people who are
obsessed with clothes and spend a large proportion of their income on
fashion – hell, I used to be one of them.

But I still don’t know anyone who buys $3000 shoes. Or Hermes
handbags. Or Chanel jackets. Somehow, in this environmental and
economic climate, that kind of materialism and consumerism seems
utterly vulgar, even before you do something appalling like put clothes
like that on destitute third world people….