During this past Fall 2013 Fashion Month, stylist and Love magazine Editor in Chief, Katie Grand, and filmmaker James Lima shot a short film with some of Louis Vuitton’s top models. Not necessarily headline news—except for the fact that the models were featured in compromising positions, getting into cars and lurking in dark alleys. It did not take long for some observers to wonder if the cops would soon be cuffing them (in LV handcuffs, perhaps?) for prostitution. While online commentary is on the fence, with some individuals writing “It’s art.” and others stating, “Many prostitutes wear Louis Vuitton,” politicians aren’t taking the matter so lightly. Left-wing French newspaper Liberation accuses Louis Vuitton of “assimilating luxury with the world’s second most profitable criminal activity after drug trafficking” while government lawyer Dominique Attias called the film “an extremely shocking representation of women.” Attias went on to state: “[the film] portrayed women’s bodies as an object and prostitution as something that is playful and enjoyable. This is very damaging because we are trying to fight the idea, to which some young women in France subscribe, that prostitution is banal and just a way of getting money to buy clothes.”
Recently, there has been an increase in France of investigative documentaries showcasing the rise of young girls, desperate for designer goods, turning to online human trafficking to feed their material desires.
The film has since been set to private on Vimeo and can no longer be found on Katie Grand’s website. Grand has just released the following statement: “We are very sorry for any offense caused. It was certainly not our intention.”
