Dolce & Gabbana’s lavish, art-inspired adverts, featuring Australian model Gemma Ward, have come under fire for glorifying violence. Dumbfounded? We are.
LONDON, January 10, 2007 – A British watchdog agency criticized Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana on Wednesday for ads that showed models aggressively brandishing knives.
The Advertising Standards Authority said the company acted irresponsibly and breached standards of good taste in publishing the ads, which showed male models waving knives while surrounded by glamorous women models, in poses inspired by the paintings of French romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. One man was shown lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head.
There was no immediate comment from Milan-based Dolce & Gabbana.
The ruling amounts to a slap on the wrist and doesn’t ban the ads.
The independent authority, which regulates the industry, issued the report after 166 people complained that two ads, which appeared in The Times and Daily Telegraph last October, glorified knife and gun crime..
Wonder if Delacroix had the same problem… or has violence in art just become an issue a century later?
