US First Lady Michelle Obama is on the pages of Vogue covers and Carla Bruni Sarkozy’s outfits are talked about as if they are next year’s state budget. For those early adopters growing a bit tired of such pointlessness the Chechen minister of press and information is taking fashion and politics combo to a new level.


A few months Canadian former catwalk model Chrystal Callahan was hired to blog on Grozny Gossip and host Highlights of the Week with Chrystal Callahan on state-controlled television Grozny TV. Features on fashion, beauty and lighthearted topics in general are mixed with tributes to Chechnya’s president Kadyrov, infamous for controlling his war-torn country and subjects with murder and torture. Callahan, and her employers, state the purpose of the blog and 20-minute show to be a mirror of the beautiful side of Chechen everyday life avoiding the more obvious darker side of Chechen life.


This cocktail of fashion, propaganda and social media makes you wonder of you underestimated the importance and impact of fashion after all? Or maybe one-dimensional propaganda never went out of fashion? Lately fashion bloggers are said to be responsible of the democratization of the fashion industry, but that might just be old news. Maybe the early adopting fashion bloggers are going over to the other side…


For another take on fashion fundamentalism please watch this.


Thanks to Paula Bjork for this story.


References:
Radio Free Europe


Image Credit: ?

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