Le Smoking
We all know the risks of smoking and we all know its a complete no-no as far as your health is concerned, but as much as anti smoking charities may try, cigarettes won't lose their glamourous assosiations.
Think back to iconic images of famous fashionistas smoking and who springs to mind? Coco Chanel. Kate Moss. Marlene Dietrich. Is it any wonder that its been one of the ultimate chic fashion accessories over the last century?
Take a look above right, would these images or people, be as cool and effective without the little white baby in view?
A look at backstage photos from any fashion show would reveal models swapping spinach leaves for an extra nutricious pack of fags. Smoking has been a part of fashion for decades, yet today, in the modern society we live in, and now that we are completely clued up on the health implications, is it still OK?
Should young people be allowed to grow up flicking through fashion magazine editorals featuring models lighting up?
In the UK, cigarette and tobacco adverts have been banned for a long time (although things are different in some other parts of the world) and many countries have even introduced smoking bans,
so should featuring top models"Welcome to My World" for W Magazine, March 2007
and celebrities smoking across the pages of our fashion bibles be a thing of the past, too? Or is it stupid to scrap the glamourous connotations of smoking, if we know the risks anyway?
20 comments:
i know what you mean it always looks so glamoourous on models
but then you watch 'how to look ten years younger' and it is a lot less appealing
im to vain to smoke, and i am completley obsessed with skin care
so for me it is a big no no
interesting post i loved it
It's unfair in every conceivable way.
No matter how hurtful they are, people will always be attracted to cigarettes and associate them with glaour and cool. It's in our imaginaire collectif. Heck what's the english word? Collective imaginary?
Anyway. French Vogue features cigarettes in every fucking editorail. I swear.
Smoking is elegant in fashion because it elongates the arm/hand and smoke is always interesting to work with.
It's bad and everyone knows it, yet everyone wants to be a smoking badass nowadays. It's rebellious, considered cool and so on and so on. And you'll never be able to change that.
i don't mind cigs in fashion editorials, i actually thought that the cigs made the "welcome to my world" editorial a bit more iteresting. although maybe they could've replaced the cigs with an elegant clutch or something. i have to say that smoking can look elegant and glamourous in photos, but in real life, i find it very tashy! especially the teen smokers under the age of eighteen- they just scream out, look i'm cool! and i especially dislike the moms who smoke around their kids- it's just disgusting!
smoking can look so rebellious and add that edgy look to a photo or it can look incredibly glamourus for example in breakfast at tiffinys when holly gollightly has her long thin cigerrete holder.
But i think in real life it looks incredibly disgusting in the hands of old men and women but with teenagers i think it can sometimes look quite cool but other times it just looks incredibly attension seeking and "look at me i'm all grown up"
xxx
yuck. i say that with all the repulsiveness an ex-smoker can muster. i've been smoke free for six months now. it took me two years of trying to quit.
after 3 weeks, i could see the difference in my skin, it was amazing.
it may look glamorous, but in reality, the smell gets everywhere, and it makes you age faster than last year's HELLO magazine.
that said, young people SHOULD be allowed to flick through whatever they get thier hands on. it's important...
Well I'm anti-smoking but...a cigarette does look tres elegant when it's first lit. So sometimes I pose with an unlit one just for show ...what a saddo! It's interesting to know some of you are put off it for vanity reasons even though you're so young. Good on you, my understanding was that teenagers think they're invincible so the argument about it aging your skin would have no meaning to a young person. Nice to see that theory proven wrong.
i was SO upset when i first saw that picture of agyness, freja, and irina smoking. i thought they were better than that...
I think it is a big no no too! I wrote a post about it a while ago. You can see lots of pictures featuring smoking here:
http://dianabobar.wordpress.com/2007/06/03/smoking-is-in/
So yeah, ban it! I think one can be cool without the smoking too!
maybe it's just because I don;t smoke..
Smoking looks glamorous in pictures....when models are doing it. Cos they are paid to make things look good and have that "fuck me i make nicotine look hot" mentality.
I see people smoke cigs, weed, hooka, mary janes, all sorts of drug paraphernalia outside the 7-11 at my school all the time, and they look very, extremely sad. Especially when the cops come and they scatter like the delinquents they are.
ah...smoking ! what a huge debate... here in France it has recently been banned in public places !
I'm always on and off with cigarettes ! I find them quite disgusting (the smell particularly) but there is something with it I can't help loving, the gesture maybe, and the representation on pictures, the white sticks are so appealing to me...
on the other hand I have in mind the terrible ads against tobacco, I have in mind the latest I've seen so far with a girl takin a shower and all the smoked cigarettes (>corpses)falling along her hair, body and... so my point is , I'm very sensitive to pictures and now I'm between the best and the worst with cigarettes pictures... conclusion? I don't smoke more than 1 or 2 cigs a day, I appreciate them badly and then I'm completely disgusted, so I think I'm ok with it... I quite like the gap between glamorous visions and horrific visions of cigs, it's almost the epitome of life in general, the fact that the same thing has completly different sides regarding the context...
kisses, and once again I love your blog ;)
Maud
The fact that smoking is deadly is the very reason it is so glamorous. It suggests, at leas on a subconscious level, that the smoker is unafraid of living fast and dying young.
It's also good fucking fun, and one of the few avaliable pleasures in life in an age of Big Brother. Boo hoo for July 1st.
Oh my god, I came across your blog via So FASH'on and it really made me gasp.. I posted about the EXACT same thing yesterday! how cool..
love your blog!
I have to say that it looks fucking good when Kate does it.
But I'm not stupid and i know that Kate can ( and will ) make things look good . I don't have that gift.
i must say i adore yr blog even though i came across it this month.
ah smoking, everyone gets dragged into this issue (no pun intended). these images bring glamour and edge as if u r not scared to live in a world with consequences like this. i wrote a whole essay about this in my english language exam last week, did you get that question too? if not it epitomised smoking to be, how can put it, so last season x
I think its glamourous but only on a picture
I must say, I do think it looks ever so glamourous, but I'm so aware of the health risks that I haven't even tried one and don't ever plan on idoing so either. This is a fabulous post you have done though, and it raises a VERY interesting point!
they really love their cancer sticks!
In fashion smoking always looks cool.
smoking is not hot! its not attrative and causes cancer. but as chic noir said in fashion smoking always looks "cool"... and people thinks that smoking makes you skinnier
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