two-twenty

shooting blankly in israel

Sometimes it is very difficult to watch well-intentioned but clueless people interject themselves into complex situations. There is the Occam's Razor argument, positing essentially that the simplest answer is often the correct one, but this does not mean that we should appoint Jessica Simpson as Secretary of State.

Case in point: a fashion shoot recently at the Israeli security barrier. Whether or not fashion house Comme-Il-Faut is concerned primarily with peace or with selling clothes (the photos are not appearing in a political journal, they are for a catalogue) may certainly be debated, but the question seems somewhat moot. The bottom line is that, due to the lopsided value system of international consumer culture, the very act of putting a model next to the barrier interpolates the wall into the world of fashion, as opposed to the other way around.

Maybe we should let one of the models explain it: "We are doing something to show that we are just people who want to have no barriers, peace and, you know, beautiful things like me and the clothes. Not gray walls." Indeed. Or perhaps the Times reporter who filed the story sums up the complicated issues best in his closing paragraph: "Ms. Weinberg wore brown plaid pants and a bright orange jacket."

Fashionable Protest, Lost in Translation | NY Times