The relationship between fashion and smoking has been on the rocks for years. While models smoke on catwalks, in fashion spreads and out on the town, the Australian fashion industry is noticeably careful not to condone smoking.
Although tobacco companies are no longer permitted to buy advertising space in Australia, cigarettes still find their way into our fashion magazines. The style section in the December 2005 issue of Harper’s Bazaar featured a model holding a cigarette as part of their “Modern Romance” theme and in June 2003 the magazine featured Naomi Watts lighting up for a photo shoot. Vanity Fair recently featured a shoot with glamour puss Johnson and Johnson heir, Casey Johnson, posing seductively, cigarette in hand.
It’s hard to fight smoking in fashion when the top supermodels and designers are visibly doing it. Style icon Kate Moss is regularly pictured looking cool and sophisticated – and smoking. Some designers even try to associate their brand with smoking. In European magazines, ads for Gucci featured cigarette ash scattered across their expensive handbags.
In spite of this, Dolly Features Editor, Caelia Corse, says the image of smoking in young people’s eyes is changing. “Generation X and Y seem to be more anti-smoking, having grown up with such a strong anti-smoking advertising TV campaign run by government.” Corse insists on the importance of the media in leading this trend.
The fashion industry is doing its part to reduce the appeal of smoking. In 2002, Mercedes Australian Fashion Week Chief Executive Officer, Simon Lock, launched a Smoke-Free Fashion Initiative, identifying the influence of the fashion industry on public perceptions and trends. It was still in effect at Australian Fashion Week this year. Lock says tobacco companies target the fashion industry to sell their product and make it seem stylish. He is critical of “devious marketing activities [which] attempt to use our industry to perpetuate the myth that smoking [is] cool and glamorous.”
The initiative was praised by the government as a step forward in anti-smoking ideals. Former Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Aging, Trish Worth, highlighted the influence of the industry on social norms and welcomed the changes. “This initiative provides an excellent opportunity to influence the smoking-related perceptions of many young women”, she said.
Only time will tell how the relationship between smoking and the fashion industry will pan out. It seems there are many looking forward to a long-awaited separation, while others still hope they will give it another shot.