Pop quiz: Fashion or porn?
Feeling inspired after Fashion Week I gave this Fashion or Porn quiz (warning: it’s racy), published by NSS Magazine, a whirl. It tests if you can correctly identify partial images as porn or fashion advertisement. While this seemed easy enough, I failed the quiz miserably and pegged images in the wrong category after continuous tries.
Obviously the point of the quiz was to show the lines are blurred between fashion and porn. This was also demonstrated when Kendall Jenner walked down the runway in a barely there top. (Cute pants though)
Porn’s influence on fashion and culture isn’t new, and something that has become more prevalent over time. Our society is conflicted, too. We celebrate our sexuality but also are uncomfortable and puritanical when it comes to discussing sex.
But because sex sells, the fashion houses and advertisers will continue to appeal to our most primitive, hard-coded desires, and go for the attention grabbing skin shots. And consumers will strive to demonstrate wisdom in knowing we won’t look as sexy as the presented photo shopped images. And, most importantly, we’ll limit as much as possible, our children’s exposure to such pictures.
I’ve accepted, maybe rightly or wrongly, this delicate balancing act between porn and artistic expression (or clever advertising) as a consequence of our freedom of expression. And what one person considers fashion and art, someone else would say its porn. This is determined in the eye of the beholder.
Hope you did better on the quiz than I did and good luck in putting together your spring wardrobe, if this winter ever ends!