Vogue Italia has caused an angry stir over a fashion article that refers to “hoop earrings” as “slave earrings.” Writer Anna Bassi and Vogue Italia received a slew of angry comments from men and women the world over, accusing Vogue of glamorizing slavery.
The ad copy reads: If the name brings to the mind the decorative traditions of the women of colour who were brought to the southern United States during the slave trade, the latest interpretation is pure freedom. Colored stones, symbolic pendants and multiple spheres. And the evolution goes on.”
Readers of the article were so incensed that a petition was created on Twitter and Bassi’s email address was publicized so protesters could email her personally. The petition states: “Ad agencies are clearly in dire need of consultation by Black Women and Men, as they routinely miss the mark in communicating with consumers.”
Comments posted on the website and on other forums have been mostly negative and readers are blasting the writer and editorial staff for being racist, ignorant, and insensitive. This entire scandal is interesting in light of the fact that Vogue Italia featured an entire issue with only black models three years ago. “The Black Issue” became the biggest-selling issue in the history of Vogue.
One commenter by the name of Chezney said: There is absolutely nothing fashionable about the history of enslaved Africans.
African women were not ‘brought’ to the US; they were captured, raped, beaten, and taken against their will in chains.
I do not interpret these earrings as a message of freedom. This is just another reminder of how companies continue to be insensitive to the history of the Maafa (The African Holocaust).
Vogue Italia has removed the article from the website and after replacing the word “slave” with the word “ethnic” but that didn’t stop the fury. Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani has attempted to calm the worldwide storm by saying it was simply a matter of “really bad translation.” She stated, “We apologize for the inconvenience. It is a matter of really bad translation from Italian into English,”
“The Italian word, which defines those kind of earrings, should instead be translated into ‘ethnical style earrings’. Again, we are sorry about this mistake which we have just amended in the website.”
This explanation isn’t smoothing the matter over as another commenter accused Sozzani of insulting readers intelligence. Alli cat, wrote: “Riiight. Now they’re ‘ethnic’?! My Italian may be a bit rusty, but I don’t remember slave (i.e. Schiavo in Italian) being anywhere even roughly translated to ‘ethnic’ (Etnico). if so then you are implying that any person of ethnicity darker than white is un schiavo. Please don’t act like we’re stupid. This is insulting.”
Vogue isn’t the only entity to use the “slave earrings” term. A Google search found several websites that refer to and sell “slave earrings” as multiple-piercing earrings. Smart girl Consulting, a Style and Fashion website carries this description in a feature article:
The term “slave earring” comes from the notion of chaining two things together. In the case of earrings the lobe and ear cartilage are chained in a similar way that you might see in slave bracelets or slave anklets.
EBay has a page of “slave earrings and bracelets” in sets, and the style appears to be reminiscent of the Punk or Goth style. One thing is certain, the term has been around in fashion circles since at least 1946, and apparently tolerated until the Vogue masses caught on. Whether or not it makes a difference that the aforementioned description is more tolerable because the style isn’t a classic hoop earring with a sensationalized label is debatable.