In the recent edition of Vogue India, toothless women and old haggard men wear contemporary fashion accessories worth thousands of dollars.Granted, India is often seen as Steve McCurry's National Geographic portraits, instead of through the lens of a a cheeky fashion shoot. But regardless, I found it insensitive that the Vogue editors thought it couth to place Burberry umbrellas and a Birkin bag on individuals representing the unidentified poor.

The rift between impoverished and wealthy in India is vast, and as the New York Times points out, "How does one sell something like a $1,000 handbag in a country where most people will never amass that sum of money in their lives, and many are starving?" The wealth politics in India are rapidly augmenting-- with many living on "less than $1.25 dollars a day", while others are capitalizing from a new economic boom. The rift is sensitive.

Place the concept of luxury and destitution on a western stage, and it is a whole new ballgame. American designer Jeremy Scott walked his models down the runway for his Spring 2008 collection topped with trashcan lids and faces streaked with makeup representing dirt. Galliano's Spring 2000 collection centered around 'homeless couture' and featured models carrying newspapers wrapped around liquor bottles. Tyra Banks decided to become homeless for a day for her talk show, taping her deprivation in sepia. She even had to wear flannel. Tyra then proceeded to bring this quaint concept to America's Next Top Model where the ingenues shot a campaign pretending they were homeless... surrounded on set by real homeless girls.

Grime and glitter make for a visually interesting aesthetic, but the fashion industry is not superfluous and certainly not harmless. As apolitical as some say the industry is (certainly not PETA), how can people not politically react to such exorbitance juxtaposed to a struggle for basic human conditions-- especially when the models are actually living in destitution? Poverty in visual culture is not something that should be trivialized; a let them eat cake mentality is retrogressive. Then again, stints like Tyra's and spreads like Vogue's remind us of the problem better than a report from the World Bank ever could...