Heroin chic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heroin chic, characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath eyes, and jutting bones, was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion. 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 several Calvin Klein fashion shoots.[1]
Heroin chic fashion drew much criticism, especially from anti-drug groups.[2] Fashion designers, models such as Kate Moss and Jaime King, and movies such as Trainspotting were blamed for glamorizing heroin use. Then-president Clinton condemned the heroin chic look.[3] 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.[4]
The trend eventually faded, perhaps in part due to the overdose death of a prominent fashion photographer of the genre, David Sorrenti.[4]
The term "heroin chic" has also been used retroactively to describe the image of some 1970s bands in the New York City protopunk movement, such as The Velvet Underground, or the bands that these groups would later influence, such as The Psychedelic Furs.
[edit] References
- ^ Calvin Klein special on the Biography channel
- ^ Turns of Phrase: Heroin Chic
- ^ President Clinton on Heroin Chic
- ^ a b Sullum, Jacob. "Victims of Everything." Reason Magazine (May 23, 1997)
