who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

Vogue India publishes designer fashion spread, featuring poverty-level Indian men and women.

I don't think it's just my length of time studying Indian history, the effect of Western hegemony on India, and post-colonial theory that makes me absolutely sick and enraged at this. Have we, over history and since the beginning of British domination in the seventeenth century, not progressed at all in dealing with the supposed split between Orientalism and Occidentalism? Is culture as a whole still bent on fetishizing an exoticism of Eastern ways of life?

I mean, what is the point of fashion? It's to create in-groups and exclude others; fashion defines who are the Right People, and who is outside and not in style. More importantly, it is also a way to reveal your affluence, through impractical and expensive belongings that you could only afford if you had the money. These people displayed would never fit the definition of The Right People, especially not by the Western-based definitions of Vogue; they're too busy TRYING NOT TO STARVE TO DEATH.

But it isn't just the condescension and ignorance of their situation that is disgusting. Look at the designer names- Burberry, Alexander McQueen, Fendi, Hermès Birkin. All European names. These are not Indian designers, highlighting the best of their culture for those of their culture reading it. Instead, it is the promotion of Eurocentricity as the norm, othering and putting in second place that which is native. Though India may have gained independence in the forties, clearly the principles of imperializing through capitalism flourish.


A man models a Burberry umbrella in Vogue that costs about $200. Some 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day.