Fashionably Offensive

Yesterday evening, I sat on my couch performing one of my favorite activities - flipping through the pages of a fresh magazine. Halfway through, I came to an advertisement that didn't strike me as particularly odd but I stopped to look. It was quite attractive actually.

It was an ad for Diesel clothing line featuring a young, beautiful couple lounging the roof of a building on what appears to be an oppressively hot day. The man is dressed in khakis and a gray shirt which he has unbuttoned and is resting his head in the lap of his lover. She is wearing a body skimming, off-white, beaded mini-dress and is pouring water out of a tumbler into the awaiting open mouth of her man. Behind them is the visible skyline of a city.

I stared at the ad hoping something about it would speak to me. I often do this with fashion layouts - I will scrutinize every detail looking for hidden tidbits that may lead to a deeper meaning or tell a story. Then my eyes were drawn to the bottom left corner of the page. In white hollow lettering were the words "GLOBAL WARMING READY". I felt a twinge of resentment as soon as I read it over the fact that a fashion label was using a very grave world issue as a way to push its product.

But still, I looked even further into the photograph because I still could not grasp what they were trying to convey here. And as soon as I laid my eyes on it, I gasped. The city behind the couple was flooded almost to the tops of the buildings with water!

I was outraged. This was a cheeky depiction of something that is a very real threat to our planet! Here we see two people so wrapped up in their little rooftop rendezvous that they could care less about the apparent apocalypse that is going on below them!

This company is suggesting that yes, in a very short while, the polar ice caps are going to have melted and our world as we know it will become a watery grave for most of us. But all you have to do is slap on your Diesel brand clothing and climb for some higher ground and who cares about the destruction that we've caused?

Then I noticed a bit of tiny print trailing up the left side of the page. I held it up close to my face so I could read it:

"Number 234 in a series of DIESEL 'how to...' guides to successful living"

Are they kidding? So furthermore, the implication of the ad is that you can still live the good life of the hungry upper crust even after we self destruct our own world.

I have to wonder if their next ad, number 235, will be "Wartime Ready" and feature our happy, oblivious couple reclining amongst the aftermath of an IED on a roadside in Iraq! Forget the human limbs strewn about the landscape that surrounds you! Just throw on some Diesel jeans and feel the luxury!

Perhaps Diesel needs to re-examine what constitutes "successful living". Well-maintained relationships, achievement in career, independence, love - without the social commentary in the background... Because in their quest to portray their idea of success, not only have they fallen short, they have gone too far.