Jennifer Lawrence has been one of the faces of Dior since 2012. The Dior gig is a lucrative one for Jennifer in particular, as she stars in most of the international print campaigns, not just for the Dior clothes, but Dior Beauty and the latest Dior fragrance, Joy. Dior also dresses Jennifer for most of her red carpets, to mixed results. I would argue that J-Law is probably the woman with the biggest attachment, in the public consciousness, to Dior. More than Charlize Theron, even. My point is that I understand why Dior wanted Jennifer Lawrence to be the face of their latest collection – they’re paying her all of that money, and their collaboration has been “successful” in many different ways.
But of course there’s a problem – Dior’s latest collection is a “celebration of Mexican culture” and the imagery is based on escaramuzas, or Mexican horsewomen. And yes, Dior paid J-Law to wander around in clothes based on traditional Mexican looks. Jennifer is non-Mexican as they come. Dior also paid her to say, on camera, “One of the main inspirations for this collection is the traditional women riders of Mexico, so I am really excited that this collection is looking at and celebrating these women’s heritage through such a modern lens.” Modern lens = white people appropriating Mexican heritage. People had a lot of feelings – you can see some of the comments here. Dior actually pulled the video where Jennifer was talking about the “modern lens,” but @Dopequeenpheebs grabbed it (below).
I don’t know what to say – I don’t think Dior meant to offend, but that’s no excuse. This is just another example of too many white people in the same room and not enough people of color being invited into those rooms. The one good thing I’ll say is that at least they didn’t do brownface on Jennifer.
A post shared by Phoebe Robinson (@dopequeenpheebs) on Nov 13, 2018 at 11:47am PST
Videos, Instagrams, print advertising courtesy of Dior.
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