When on the subject of atrocities, haute couture is not the first thing that springs to mind. A recent and quite surreal New York Times spread on Myanmar has helped us understand why.
Published in T: The New York Times Style Magazine’s May travel issue, the aptly titled ‘What Happened Here’ mulls the ethicality of travelling to the country due to the brutal campaign against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.
Shudders in Myanmar’s tourism industry suggest it’s a question many westerners are grappling with, but among the mentions of ethnic slaughter, mass gang rape and burned villages are photographs of a model touting designer clothes.
The model, Alek Wek, who fled to the UK in 1991 to escape violence in her own country of Sudan, wears eye-wateringly expensive garments, including a Giorgio Armani coat, Prada corset, Gucci gloves, and Chanel jacket.
Some pieces are past the US$5,000 mark, a fact we know because the prices and brands are given in each photograph.
Wek is seen striking various poses around Inle Lake; next to pagodas, on a pier and in a boat, but none of the 2019 pre-fall collections resonate with the British subjugation of Burma, its sorry decades under the dictator Gen Ne Win and other focuses of the text.
Social media users did not criticize Wek, who has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees since 2012, nor did they target the photographer, writer or stylist.
Most of the ire was reserved for the editor who decided on the awkward juxtaposition. Online, where the article is titled ‘The Quandary of Myanmar: Will Starving the Country of Visitors Make Things Better?’, is an embedded slideshow of the photographs with the garment prices and links to the fashion outlets.
“What do they want out of this marketing?” activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi told Myanmar Mix.
Using stories of beleaguered people to create attention and revenue is “unethical and inhumane,” she said, adding, “I’m disappointed and demand an apology for the general public in Myanmar and the Rohingya population.”
Some Facebook users also expressed their exasperation at the fashion shoot/atrocities combo.
“What the hell is the NYT thinking?!” wrote one person, who was shocked to find a “stylized shoppers’ guide” inserted in a story about genocide.
Another netizen summed up the general sentiment by posting alongside the original article: “It doesn’t get more distasteful and offensive than this.”
The New York Times was contacted for comment.
