A PHOTOGRAPH from one of China’s hottest fashion photographers, Chen Man, featured as part of a Christian Dior exhibition in Shanghai, drew the ire of Chinese media this week.

In the photo, there is a woman with a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) hair style close to the scalp, with light eyebrows, slender eyes, freckles on her cheeks, and a black “Lady Dior” handbag in her hands.

“Is this the Asian woman in Dior’s Eyes?” the Beijing Daily asked. The article went on to describe the photograph as having “spooky eyes, gloomy face, and Qing Dynasty-styled nail armor.”

“The photographer is playing up to the brands, or the aesthetic tastes of the West,” the newspaper said. “For years, Asian women have appeared with small eyes and freckles from the Western perspective,” which, however, doesn’t reflect the mainstream aesthetics in today’s China.

The photo also provoked a heated debate on Chinese social media. Some netizens on the Twitter-like Weibo criticized the image for pandering to Western stereotypes of Chinese women, while others pointed out the similarity between this image and others shot by Chen in 2012 that were featured on the cover of i-D magazine. A few said we should be tolerant towards artistic representation and inclusive beauty standards other than those usually seen in China, where fair skin and large eyes are prized. But more people expressed an uneasy feeling after seeing the photo. “It literally scares me,” one netizen said, adding that the woman in the photo appears “like a zombie, the type that may bring nightmares.”

The photograph was part of Dior’s “Art’n’Dior” exhibition, on show until Nov. 23 in Shanghai’s West bund Art District, which included a series of Lady Dior handbags reinterpreted as part of the ongoing Dior Lady Art project by 12 artists, including Zhang Huan and Li Songsong.

Dior has deleted the photos on its official Weibo, and Chen has not yet responded to the incident. Chen has previously been criticized by fellow Chinese photographers for heavily modifying her works.

And this is not the first time that a foreign luxury brand’s promotional campaign in China backfired. In 2018, Dolce&Gabbana was resisted by the Chinese due to its promotional videos deliberately vilifying Chinese characters. In that video, a woman tried to eat pizza with chopsticks.

(SD-Agencies)