global warming ready

My friend Claire was telling me about these ads before I started seeing them in Nylon, Vice and other hipster-ish rags that I love and read faithfully. I've never been a fan of Diesel's fashion, always thought their look was a little too College-Street-Party-Crowd for me, but I had a boyfriend who wore their runners and I didn't mind those. That boyfriend is getting an email! Burn your Diesel. This is hideous:





The caption in the bottom left hand corner reads "Global Warming Ready" (for those of you with tiny lap top monitors). And while the first ad is offensive and stupid, the second one is that plus gross! "Here, darling, you look thirsty! Have some of this toxic water I just scooped up from what used to be our filthy city street. PS, its salt water and will likely dehydrate you to the point of death!" Ugh.

While fashion ads aren't expected to be anything more than vacuous and beautiful depictions of a designer's work (perhaps with the exception of labels like Kenneth Cole or Benetton, known for their political activism), these definitely go beyond the mildly annoying de rigueur of skinny girls holding ridiculously over-priced bags (bags and skinniness, by the way, both coveted by me). My point though, is that Diesel, instead of denying Global Warming, is glamorizing it. I can't decide if thats better or worse.

Personally I think that the flooded city ad is frightening, so maybe it will actually alert those who view it to the reality of the problem. But the focus is on the models and the city is merely a backdrop, and its pretty, there's no debris or dead bodies floating by like we saw in the real flood in New Orleans. The Paris ad though, turns the city into a tropical paradise... where's the scare factor here? I won't even touch on the completely and utterly unrealistic factor. Ugh, again.

Yes, I get that these ads are supposed to be ironic and humourous. But I don't find it funny. Maybe my sense of humour sucks or maybe I'm, as one 'friend' puts it "a dogmatic leftist bullshitter". Either way, I hate Diesel.