Heroin Chic
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 Christy 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".[1]
Background
At the time during which heroin chic emerged, the popular image of heroin was changing for several reasons. The price of heroin had decreased, and its purity had increased dramatically.[2] In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic had made injecting heroin with unclean needles increasingly risky.[2] Available heroin became more pure, and inhalation became a more common mode of heroin use than previously.[2] These changes allowed heroin to find a new market among the middle-class and the wealthy, in contrast to its previous base of the poor and marginalized.[2]
Heroin infiltrated pop culture through such figures as Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and River Phoenix, whose fame brought attention to their addictions in the early 1990s. In film, the heroin chic trend in fashion coincided with a string of movies in the mid-1990s – such as The Basketball Diaries, Trainspotting, and Pulp Fiction – that examined heroin use and drug culture.[3]
Rise and fall of the aesthetic
This waifish, emaciated, and drug-addicted look 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.[4] The trend eventually faded, perhaps in part due to the overdose death of a prominent fashion photographer of the genre, Davide Sorrenti.[5] Sorrenti was known for his photographs of seemingly strung-out models in stupor-like poses that some felt emulated the blank look of the heroin addict and glamorized drug use. He fell in love with teenage model James King, herself a heroin addict, and began abusing substances himself. Vulnerable due to a lifelong blood disorder, Sorrenti died in 1997 after an injection of an amount that was "not normally considered unusual".[6]
Criticism and analysis
Heroin chic fashion drew much criticism, especially from anti-drug groups.[7] Fashion designers, models such as Kate Moss and Jaime King, and movies such as Trainspotting were blamed for glamorizing heroin use. Then-U.S. president Bill Clinton condemned the look.[8] Other commentators denied that fashion images made drug use itself more attractive. "There is no reason to expect that people attracted to the look promoted by Calvin Klein and other advertisers...will also be attracted to heroin, any more than suburban teen-agers who wear baggy pants and backward caps will end up shooting people from moving cars," wrote Jacob Sullum in Reason magazine.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ "The Death Proclamation of Generation X: A Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Goth, Grunge and Heroin" by Maxim W. Furek. i-Universe, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-595-46319-0
- ↑ a b c d Durrant, Russil & Jo Thakker. Substance Use & Abuse: Cultural and Historical Perspectives. Sage Publications (2003), p87. ISBN 076192342X.
- ↑ The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Women under the Influence. Johns Hopkins University Press (2006), p98. ISBN 0801882281.
- ↑ Calvin Klein special on the Biography channel
- ↑ a b Sullum, Jacob. "Victims of Everything." Reason Magazine (May 23, 1997)
- ↑ Furek, Maxim W. (2008).
- ↑ Turns of Phrase: Heroin Chic
- ↑ President Clinton on Heroin Chic