Much attention has been paid to the recent issue of Vogue Italia which contains a fashion editorial inspired by this year’s catastrophic BP oil spill.  While some call it art, others decry the photographs for glamorizing the tragedy. On top of this, naysayers contend that it’s tasteless to use (and destroy) thousands of dollars worth of garments in the midst of all the resulting economic hardship that is being endured by gulf coast residents. Okay okay, no doubt the repercussions of the oil spill outweigh fall fashion trends, but I think this is exactly the point of what Vogue and Steven Meisel are doing. Like all good creative work, it seeks to rise above all of the moral posturing and political disgust. It’s not about how bad we are or how good we are, or how much we love or hate oil. Nature doesn’t moralize.
I think a good metaphor can be found the aftermath of the spill; while impassioned protesters and outraged politicians were running in circles passing around blame, megatrillions of small, oblivious ocean borne microbes were saying to themselves, “hey, we can eat this stuff, and we will!”  These microbes are killin’ it in a major way. In the midst of moral outrage and injustice, we should be happy that there are natural processes constantly at work in a realm beyond right and wrong.  And who knows, maybe art is even one of them. The waste that resulted from the oil spill is nothing compared to the waste of a fancy dress, but morally outraged people would rather complain about how frivolous fashion is than stop driving their cars. That’s decidedly not killin’ it. So just remember, it’s never wise to dismiss an outside element that says “hey, I can use this!” because it may have more to do with healing the situation then we can ever imagine

Oil Spill Inspired Vogue Photo Shoot