Heroin chic
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, and jutting bones.
The look, which promoted emaciated features and androgyny, was an alternative that stood in direct contradiction to the healthy and vibrant look of models such as Christie Brinkley, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, and Heidi Klum. A 1996 article in The Los Angeles Times charged that the fashion industry had "a nihilistic vision of beauty" that was reflective of drug addiction, and U.S. News and World Report called the movement a "cynical trend".
This waifish, emaciated, and drug-addicted look was popular in the fashion world and was the basis of the 1993 advertising campaign of Calvin Klein featuring Kate Moss. Film director and actor Vincent Gallo contributed to the development of this image through his Calvin Klein fashion shoots.
19th century precedents
The proto-pin-ups of France of the fin de siècle period, especially those of Raphaël Kirchner (1867– 1917) and Léo Fontan (1884 - 1965), launched the heroin chic look. Never before in the history of the female nude, have models look so skinny. This predilection for the emaciated female form is also evident in the work of contemporary artist Franz von Bayros (1866 - 1924). See for example, this print[1] Tantalus (1908) from Der Toilettentisch.
