Welcome to the nineteenth insertion of DEMUR®, an analytical series highlighting the intricacies of the artistic world and the minutiae lying within. In this episode we’ll review the overarching crisis ‘Heroin Chic’ has ensued, the frail, waif figure discreetly promoted in today’s society following the debut of Kate Moss, drug glorification and punk rock.
Rising to fame in the mid-1990’s, heroin chic was originally debuted by Gia Carangi nearly two decades prior. Her ultra-thin, defined body contrasted the assertive ideals of the 80’s and fueled an attraction much like the aesthetic of grunge. At the height of her career, Carangi signed a contract with Versace for $100k/year and was steadily garnering attention. However, following belligerent use of opiates, the supermodel was dropped by most photographers and turned to the streets of New York, dying of AIDS in 1986. She symbolized a precursor to the effects heroin chic would ensue, and yet the trend engulfed pop-culture years later.
As the obsession with grunge swole, women across the globe tapered. Kate Moss plastered billboards with an angular silhouette, thinned hair, harrowing dark eyes and a projecting edge. The year was 1995 and Calvin Klein was running one of the most influential ad campaigns to date, featuring a dangerously thin model at the forefront - Moss. Her deathly gaze and pale complexion sent a shockwave among impressionable girls, marking the true beginning of heroin chic. Drug glamification and the ¨strung-out¨ body shape led waves of anorexia, body-dysmorphia and eating disorders throughout, impacts found most prominently in millennials and teens alike.
Cocaine was snorted faster than cigarettes could be smoked, the haze of nicotine lacing a generation of broken kids chasing the unattainable. The fad of self-deprecation seemed to be undying, a dream world of starving models and teens - until he did. The death of photographer David Sorrenti woke up the industry following his narcotics overdose in 1997. Heroin chic had taken over the beauty standard, and continues to, but seemed to fade as fast as it began. The era momentarily died with its founder but resurges in the filtered media today.
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