What is it about fashion designers and bondage? The ad campaign for “Elohim by Sabrina Goh” is both incomprehensible and entirely familiar (women in chains, bound legs, etc.). According to her website, Goh is a self-described “Malaysian born, Singapore based designer” who claims God as her “motivation for her to do her collection.” Good thing I’m not a fashion designer, because my image of the divine leans toward the Belushi-in-toga and that wouldn’t sell.
The ads are classic conflagrations of sexism, violence and fashion to my eye. Is there a racial dimension, too? What is the significance of the models’ whiteness? How might the ads have been different if Goh had used women of all colors as models? What if Ms. Goh had chosen only Japanese models? Only Chinese models? African models? African-American models? Malay models?
A safe-for-work still from the ad campaign is below the jump.
-Bridget Crawford
