State of Emergency, a most disturbing fashion pictorial shot by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, September 2006. Models: Hilary Rhoda & Iselin Steiro.

Police State Style... Everyone is going to be watching you while the cops are beating you down at the airport this fall. Better make sure you're decked out in the latest Italian fashions.

These pictures are kind of disturbing, but they are also iconic.

State of Emergency, a most disturbing fashion pictorial shot by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, September 2006. Models: Hilary Rhoda & Iselin Steiro.

Police State Style... Everyone is going to be watching you while the cops are beating you down at the airport this fall. Better make sure you're decked out in the latest Italian fashions.

These pictures are kind of disturbing, but they are also iconic.

[ Agreed. I find it fascinating, and the reactions to it as well. I know live journal comments aren't necessarily the place to go for intellectual content, but the gut reactions some people had to it were very interesting.

I interpreted the misogyny as deliberate and symbolic, not as a self promotion, personally, and I found it more disturbing than alluring. I think you're meant to feel violated on behalf of the models. Perhaps they look a bit more bored than scared, but then too, that may be purposeful as well; a reference to the way we, as a society, have basically accepted what's happened to us and our freedoms.

Of course, I know the danger of overinterpretation. It may be that this photographer gets off on dominance and thought it'd be "cool" to use airport security and dogs as a vehicle, in which case, that's pretty crass and dismissive of a very real issue. So, I'm not about to start lauding him as a genius, necessarily. The above is just what *I* thought, which says more about the generality of art than anything else. It *almost* doesn't even matter what the artist thought they were making. -k]