Fashion campaigns are (sometimes purposefully) divisive, and it’s not uncommon for a new one to spark up a huge debate on social media. The latest one to cause a fuss comes from Moschino designer Jeremy Scott and Kaia Gerber – and it’s a whole mess of controversy. We first spotted the drama on Kaia’s Instagram photo, which showed her posing in a duck egg blue outfit with a rather orange complexion.
ALIEN NATION for @MOSCHINO. thank you @itsjeremyscott and #stevenmeisel 🧡🚀
A post shared by Kaia(@kaiagerber) on Jun 25, 2018 at 2:22pm PDT
Comments soon came rolling in, with some people comparing her to an Oompa Loompa, accusing her of cultural appropriation and more. One commenter wrote, “when your spray tan goes wrong”. Another asked, “Are you supposed to be black here?” while others quipped, “why is she black???” and “This is not right why tf u making her look black”.
It seems that many missed the point though, as Kaia clarified in her caption that the campaign is called ‘ALIEN NATION’, so she was indeed supposed to look that orange – it wasn’t some dodgy Photoshop job or spray tan error. Delving deeper into the campaign, we find Gigi Hadid and Vittoria Ceretti also with brightly covered face and body makeup for the campaign.
A post shared by Jeremy Scott(@itsjeremyscott) on Jun 25, 2018 at 11:20am PDT
A post shared by Jeremy Scott(@itsjeremyscott) on Jun 26, 2018 at 2:50am PDT
Jeremy Scott’s original caption on the photos said “The only thing illegal about this alien is how good she looks!”, so naturally, ANOTHER round of comments came in, with many accusing Jeremy Scott of being ‘insensitive’ to the current migrant crisis going on in the USA.
But it seems that the concept actually has roots in that very topic, judging by Scott’s clarification. He wrote,
“WHAT IS AN “ALIEN?” THE CONCEPT OF MY AD CAMPAIGN IS TO BRING ATTENTION TO THE US ADMINISTRATION’S HARSH STANCE TOWARDS ‘ILLEGAL ALIENS.’ I PAINTED THE MODELS IN MY SHOW AND THIS CAMPAIGN AS A WAY TO OPEN A DISCUSSION ON WHAT EXACTLY AN ‘ALIEN’ IS – ARE THEY ORANGE BLUE YELLOW GREEN? DOES THIS MATTER? THEY ARE OUR FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS, CO-WORKERS, RELATIVES AND PEOPLE WE LOVE.”
So is he jumping on the back of tragic news as tensions flare in America? Well, it doesn’t seem so. Back in February, this was clearly the concept he was going for. He told Dazed:
“I was thinking about immigration and illegal immigrants, or illegal ‘aliens’ when I was designing the collection. I wanted to play with the idea of what an alien actually looks like.”
