Since the world was created, there were two different sides: for and against religion. People need control and religion provides them some rules to follow in order to have something to believe in, above the human nature. It is often seen that religion adepts are against of any kind of beauty made by human kind. It is obvious that religion adepts are against to material things, considering them a tool to convince humanity to commit a sin. Fashion is a domain that emphasises all the barriers put by religion in front of human thinking. Controversy models and eccentrically collections, are all made by human brains that propose to change the traditionally way of thinking. I chose to be focused on these two areas because when they meet each other a new intrigue starts. Religion is itself one of the most debated subjects in the world, yet when it is combined with the fashion industry the controversy comes naturally. Tahmina Begun said ‘You really do not have to be religious to believe in fashion’ yet fashion photographers and designers often break the ‘law’ between these areas through commercials and mottos. Is this technique an art arm or just a tool that surely makes the name of the company known to the world? Living in a world where shocking means catchy, modern, unique and irreplaceable, fashion industry launches its aims with very strong and striking PR campaigns. When something is provocateur or controversial, it has all media coverage, thus the mix of fashion and religion can make a brand more established by PR campaigns. One of the most relevant examples of this ‘mixture’ would be the Marithe & Francois Girbaud campaign[i] which shown the materializing of Last Supper by fashion models.
Object of study
I have been focused on the relationship between fashion industry and religion through contemporary commercials. The main campaign that I have been focused on is owned by Marithe & Francois Girbaud brand founded in 1964 and the advertisement was launched in March 2005. ‘This advertisement´s interpretation of Leonardo´s painting did not trivialize the sacred, but rather created a new perception of femininity by presenting men – instead of women – in a position of fragility.’(Marithe & Francois Girbaud 2005)
In this instance, I prefer to focus my attention more on brand’s reviews and its audience, yet it is very interesting that the sales significant increased with more than 50% after the campaign was released. There is an endless side of curiosity which leads people to explore the nonconformity, so that an eccentrically product is more probable to be sold.
As I researched on Internet, almost all the controversy campaigns fatally rewards popularity to brand and the sales instinctively grow. According to fashion blogs and websites, the ‘one of a kind’ spirit of these advertisements brings upon people the instinct of buying in order to create a unique style for them and religion issues are not an impediment. Considering this a trend, Public Relations sector plays the main role. I asked customers about this type of commercials and I interviewed three focus groups in order to highlight the opinions of people interested in this domain.
Justification
This notion is one of the most articulated and developed within broad social theories. People need a reason in order to believe in something. The bases of religion are sustained by an abstract ideology, but regarding fashion it is mostly about Public Relations. When such different perspectives of living and thinking come together the result cannot be far away from dispute. In the latest years there were quite a few fashion campaigns which had a very strong impact for religion believers. For instance, D&G presented a naked man as Christ[ii], Purple Fashion magazine symbolizes Lindsay Lohan, actress, as Christ[iii] too, United Colours of Benetton shown Pope kissing another man[iv] and the examples could continue. However, the most incendiary advertisement is for Marithe & Francois Girbaud collection, all the religion features being approached by the fashion industry from a unique perspective.
Furthermore, there will always be a cold war between ancient and modern beliefs. This is why the mix of strong beliefs is a very common issue and Public Relations companies know that and they explore the potential of extraordinary to unbelievable limits. I picked this specific advertisement because of its complex message also for the strong impact that it has on every person who has minimum religion knowledge.
Audience reviews – Focus groups
Explanation
In terms of methodological choices, I will analyse people’s points of view by applying focus groups methodology. I chose to analyse the audience reactions in order to discover what impact has these advertisement on people lives. I interview three focus groups: one formed by 10 fashion and 10 art design students and the other by 7 teenagers who are studying various domains. The third one was formed by 5 middle-age people from Romania.
Justification
I chose this methodological choice because Public Relations companies give to people advisements according to the audience requests and all of them are in some ways related to the times we are living in. Thus, these kinds of campaigns may have a strong influence on human beliefs and the goals of achieving international media cover is accomplished by crossing the expectations. I aimed to create two groups of students because it is said that teenagers are more open-minded and they are harder to be impressed. The third focus group purpose is to mark opinions from a different angle. For the first group I chose fashion and art design students in order to receive reviews from creative and innovative minds that are passionate about the meaning of a masterpiece. The second group purpose was to analyse different perspective that are not related to any art form, yet the reviews should be from different points of view. Focus groups offered me the opportunity to explore the artistic minds and also raised me some questions about the nature and meaning of advertisements in these times. For the third group I chose people from Romania because this country was clearly affected by the Communism period and I wanted to highlight the contrast between the new generation mentality and the older one.
Due to my online research, I found out that 2005 Marithe & Francois Girbaud advertisement had an incredible success, the sales being unexpected high. Surprisingly, most of the reviews are about the message of image, not about the clothes. The spectacular form of presenting the collection made the audience to debate on the meaning of the campaign instead of sharing opinions about main collection.
Organisation
Both focus groups are made by 18-24 years old women and men, some of them being Catholic or Christians and others adopting different sides of religion. I launched the subject in these groups and I allowed the participants a couple of days to process the information and to deeply think about what impact that campaign have on their beliefs. When they were ready, I started to debate with them the subject and I also asked them some questions in order to explain their thoughts. With the first group I had a face-to-face discussion and with the second and third ones I chose to create an online chat because of the fact that all the participants are living abroad. The main different factor between these groups was that in the virtual conference I could not see what physically reactions they had when I asked some personal questions about their religion. By approaching this subject from different religion perspectives I collected various opinions.
Framework – Representation
Presentation of Stereotypes
This Marithe & Francois Girbaud campaign crosses the limitation of stereotypes by pushing religion beliefs on their limits. The stereotype of the secrecy of religion is now broken by this detriment. It is also highlighted the fact that not only the religion is divine, but fashion is too. The creation phase is now applied into one domain far away from any religion aspects. Even the stereotype of believing in something is now destroyed by applying this on fashion industry. Holy objects are metamorphosed in the style field. Vogue magazine is the new Bible and Anna Wintour is the God of fashion. But is it a bad trend? Is it an evolution, an involution or an evolution of involution?
Brittney Horner (September 26, 2013), reporter, involved the stereotype of ‘in general, religion does good for society’[vi] and Marithe & Francois Girbaud switched this mentality by a strong PR campaign which clearly expresses that clothes are the best for people in general, but the most important for society. The stereotype of ‘do good things and you will be in heaven’ is translated by designers as ‘dress good and you will be in the best place’. Religion encourages us to pray at Saints and designers encourage loving objects, not divine people. The stereotype of ‘Religion is perfect’ is now covered by ‘Clothes designers are perfect’. The mentalities have been changed, people are changing every day, so why do we not open our minds to see the artistic phase of the creation in fashion?
Interpretation of focus groups results
The result of my survey is very contrasting because of the fact that some of my participants saw this kind of advertisement like being insulting and others said that fashion is pure art. Asking people, who do not take part of fashion industry, about the presence of man in the photo, most of them replied in the same way as Alina Maldarescu: ‘ I do not understand and I think that it is a little bit creepy[…] it seems that the man is added there in Photoshop’. Sophie Clark, law student, criticizes fashion designers by saying ‘Fashion designers tend to take advantage of some beliefs making their work ‘sacred’. But what is sacred? Do we have to believe that only Bible is sacred? The stereotype of ‘Religion is sacred’ is now destroyed because any kind of work is sacred by its character. For every person who is involved in something there is one little ‘sacred’ feature which makes this effort to be worthy. By believe in something, you transform that in ‘sacred’. The stereotype of ‘human versus divinity’ is launched by Andrea Kelleher, engineer student, who think that the meaning of the campaign is that their work is perfect, ‘Godish’. The recreation of important moments of world history like The Crucifixion or the Last Supper confronts the idea of human versus divinity. By replacing such an important moment of history with a fashion advertisement may represents the importance of that collection for the designer and even for society who have to cross the limits imposed by ancient mentalities.
Regarding to Bible, at the Last Supper there were 12 men and there were no women. In the Da Vinci Code there was launched a new perspective: at Last Supper there were only 11 men and one female, Maria Magdalena. Alexandru Marangoci, fashion retail student, highlighted this fact by said ‘As far as I am concerned, it is the first time seeing a parodied version of The Last Supper!’ The ‘parody’ comes from the fact that in this advertisement there are 11 women and only one man. Alexandru’s opinion is more relevant even for noticing that the meaning of the Last Supper is lost in the creativity of contemporary. He also saw behind the campaign by regarding this collection to Public Relation sector ‘the negative admass also has a huge positive impact regarding advertising!’ His point of view marks the reason for why controversy is promoted. A surprisingly perspective comes from Marius Dobre, visual communication student. Even he is Christian he said that ‘People tend to have something to believe in just because they cannot handle the truth’[x]. This point of view explains why there are so many people who believe that this kind of expressing fashion is abusive by saying that fashion is an industry made by people, but religion is divinity, the holiest thing in the world. Emily Morris, fashion business student, highlights her point of view by saying ‘everyone is free to act and develop thing as they want such as designers who tend to assimilate the fashion world with religion’. The freedom of expressing yourself is a contemporary feature, yet even if for some people this is a disadvantage the democracy power win this war. The Last Supper concept draws to the conclusion that everything in life could be art and when the courage meets the freedom, there comes the key.
Comparing all the answers, I realised that the most important factor which forms opinions is the way that art resonates in everyone’s mind and religious lessons are crossed by everyone’s imagination, yet the contemporary era sings up the generation. An overview image upon this research would be that the development of society brings new mentalities and concepts for this generation. Most of the participants from my third group hesitated to answer at most of my question and they clearly said that religion should not be mixed with any other domain. Cristina Stoian, 45 years old, said that’ If this is happening now…when are we going to see God in fashion campaign?’ However, this advertisement implies a variety of perspectives: some people consider this concept as a denigration brought to religion, while others, for examples artists, consider it pure art. Of course, it might be thought that having a religion armour, this concept could be the subject of many debates inducting into both believers and non-believers, all these dovetailing for a single purpose aimed by fashion industries.
Overall, curiosity encourages people to explore controversial images, thus PR techniques mixed with stereotypes raise a successful advertisement. For their unique character, campaigns like this are hard to be forgotten as Coco Chanel said ‘In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different’ The trend popularity is increasing across the entire world and even in Romania George Neagu’ collection[v], Christs, achieved interesting feedbacks for its character. Even if the stereotypes are still alive, fashion has its own successful path, becoming limitless. It is obvious that fashion involves both creativity and originality, words that successfully sign jointly in Marithe & Francois advertisement. The concept of this campaign ‘Fashion/Religion’ has been taken up across the society, education and even Fashion. It has been used, applied, adapted and developed by a wide range of research in these fields. ‘Fashion’s crazy hall of fame’ (Shulman,A. 2013 Vogue, p.54) have been always absorbed by the time’s most debated issues and designers translate these through their imagination just as Albert Einstein said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’
[i] Photo published on Vogue Paris February 2005 p110-111
Andreea Daniela 
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