The new Christmas ads for Illamasqua are causing an absolute storm of protest since appearing on their Facebook page in Australia. There has been an outcry that it is offensive for all the obvious reasons. I don’t honestly know what to make of it – what I see is a stunningly beautiful model who looks like a fantasy mannequin – not even real – with cheeks that remind me of Sudanese model, Alek Wek. I don’t think I can say if I find it offensive or not, because whatever else Illamasqua might be, they are certainly not racist – in fact the opposite. I certainly do find it intriguing. So, what’s your view? I’d love to know. In context, it appears together with another visual like this:
Illamasqua make the point that the image, created by Alex Box, is about colour ON skin and not colour OF skin.
My additional thoughts are that there was no need for the colour to be black – Illamasqua could have used any colour to make the artistic point, but on the other hand, to rule out black is to restrict creativity – also wrong.
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