Monday 6 September 2010

Are Dior's 'Shanghai Dreamers' Photos Racist? No, It's Just Art







Have you seen the new Christian Dior images everyone's buzzing about?

Creatively, the photographs are genius. They are striking. They have a hazy, ethereal feel -- like family photos that have been dusted off after decades to reveal an era long gone. They're also causing quite a stir, with many people calling them racist.
These are a personal project and creation of Chinese photographer Quentin Shih. They are not part of a global campaign; "Shanghai Dreamers" is a series of couture images to celebrate the reopening of the Dior boutique in Shanghai. They currently hang on the walls and in the windows of the revamped boutique.
So what's the issue? If you look closely at the dozens of women and men who flank the Dior-costumed models, you'll see that they are a copy of one individual, duplicated again and again. Critics are ripping the images apart, saying the Dior portraits are a blatant depiction of the idea that "all Chinese people look the same."
We say BS....

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