After heroin chic... is this domestic abuse chic?
Annie Lennox’s daughter in tasteless plug for art show
IT could be a mug shot taken by the police as evidence of a horrible and violent attack.
With her pained eyes, bruised face and bloody nose, Tali Lennox, daughter of Scots pop megastar Annie Lennox, is almost unrecognisable.
But appearances, thankfully, can be deceptive. The 21-year-old aspiring artist posted these mocked up images online to show how she is ‘beating herself up’ about her first solo exhibition as a portrait painter.
But while the Instagram pictures were ‘a bit of fun’, those who campaign on behalf of the tens of thousands of women abused every year in Scotland failed to see the funny side, branding the images tasteless and trivial.
As well as the ‘mug shot’, Miss Lennox posted two other photos, one in which she has tears running down her face and one as a defiant ‘victim’ consoling herself with a can of lager.
The supermodel was ‘acting up in preparation’ for the exhibition, Layers of Life, at New York’s uber fashionable Catherine Ahnell Gallery Freerunning Art Corp.
Her dubious ‘ domestic violence chic’ attracted compliments from her Instagram visitors.
One posted: ‘I love these characters!’ Another message read: ‘Wife beater!’ But after viewing the images, Dawn Fyfe, director of SAY Women, a Glasgow-based national organisation which helps victims of abuse to pick up the pieces of their lives, said: ‘It is all very tasteless, isn’t it?’
Mrs Fyfe, whose organisation deals with the appalling aftermath of real abuse, added: ‘Using images such as this for the sake of fashion is really rather alarming.
‘It is my view that such pictures should not be used in anything other than a campaign to heighten public awareness of a very serious i ssue which affects so many women.’
Last year, Police Scotland recorded 60,080 incidents of domestic abuse throughout the country. More than 80 per cent of the victims were women.
Mrs Fyfe said: ‘There’s no justification for depicting a woman who has apparently been violated, unless to support a campaign which highlights that domestic abuse is a serious human rights i ssue or to encourage women to access the services available to them.’
Another campaigner claimed that the timing of Miss Lennox’s Instagram exercise was rather ‘ unfortunate’, given that her mother will this week take centre stage at the WOW – Women of the World Festival – in London.
Featuring renowned and eminent women from a variety of fields – from media to business and technology to the sciences – one of the spotlights of the event will be male violence against women, with talks from survivors of rape and domestic abuse.
The Glasgow social worker, who did not want to be named, said: ‘I can’t help thinking what her mum will have to say about this.
‘She’s a firebrand, well known for her campaigning on behalf of women who are the victims of violence.
‘I don’t think Annie is going to take the view that her daughter is drawing attention to a hugely serious issue.
‘It’s more likely she will recognise Tali is taking the mickey.
‘The whole thing reminds me of years back when painfully thin models who looked as if they were on drugs embraced what was known as the heroin chic look.
‘It’s just the same thing with a different emphasis.
‘It’s in very poor taste.’
‘This is really rather alarming’