muse this

My contribution to blogging for International Women’s Day is related to Helen’s great post at Surfdom.


In today's Essential lifestyle supplement to the Sydney Morning Herald, the cover story was a reverential discussion of fashion designers and their muses ("Creature of couture", Kellie Hush; not available online). Uncritically, the paper notes:

[Calvin Klein's] head was the first to turn for this relatively unknown 18-year-old model [Kate Moss].
"She had this childlike woman-like thing...It’s a kind of sexiness that I think is very exciting."

Yeah, you and Humbert Humbert.
Why the fashion industry--including the fashion media industry--continues to give Klein so much positive mainstream oxygen is the question. Coincidentally, just the other day I stumbled across some particularly creepy advertising of Klein's, featuring in a roll-call of worst ever marketing campaigns. Corporate paedophilia, anyone?