by Pia Guerrero, Co-editor and Co-founder
It’s a given that marketers use violence and sex to sell everything from cars to music, but make-up? M.A.C.’s fall/winter collection, “Juarez”, named after the Mexican city notorious for decades of rampant rape and murder of women and girls, is doing just that.
It’s important to note that these femicides are mostly of area factory workers, whose deaths now range in the thousands and have gone ignored by police since they began in 1993.
So it’s no coincidence that M.A.C.’s collection consists of lip-stick, eye-shadow and even nail-polish with names like Ghost Town, Factory and Quinceañera. The models for the campaign are made up as mummies, zombies and ghosts who look like they’ve met untimely deaths, buried in their favorite white, gauzy party dresses.
M.A.C.’s designers, Rodarte, claim it’s not death that motivated the direction and name of the line. They state to NYmag.com, it is “the ethereal nature of this landscape [that] influenced the creative development and desert palette of the collection”.
Countless towns in Mexico boast such beauty. Why not use them as an artistic muse?
In response to consumer complaints M.A.C. has officially apologized and will be renaming the line. But as the saying goes, “Any press, is good press”, and just like sex and violence, controversy sells.
The industry leader has also announced that they will donate up to $100k of profits of the new line to a non-profit working on improving the lives of women in Juarez.
After this controversy–and probably because of it–M.A.C. stands to make millions on the collection. Way more than the small amount allocated for it’s chosen cause.
Death, rape, violence used to make a profit on make-up?
Don’t buy it!
How disgusting. I really feel for those people who are still looking for or have found their daughters, mothers or sisters dead. How dare this company make a profit from people´s suffering? And yes, a lot of sick American perverts cross the border into Mexico to see what they can find here. Come on, tell the truth, as Cesar says. I will never buy MAC andI will tell all the people I know not to.
That’s repugnant and shameful!!! How dare they??
Death is a part of life, and can be beautiful and artistic. MAC is not just for normal everyday boring woman. Some women have a completely different style. What about the gothic style?
Couture is not for everyone, and not everyone is inspired by the same every day boring happy sunshine bullshit we are fed.
Thank you for giving your opinion and writing the article from the mexican perspective, the pain and shame on those who suffer because of the situation in Juarez is so deep that we can hardly imagine how it feels. It reallly hurts when someone try to show rapes as something attractive and fashion! Death with violence will never be beautifull. Don´t buy it!
Strange. I haven’t worn any MAC makeup, but at least based on these photos, I don’t like this particular look at all! I don’t understand designing “peeling flesh tights” and a “mummy blouse.” I think that outfit is hideous. I also wonder: if there hadn’t been complaints, would the company be donating any money to help women in Juarez?
Im from Cd. Juarez…… YOU ARE A DISGRACE!!!!!… profiting out of hundreds of mothers and family pain and sorrow????…. you all MAC people should be ashamed… by the way… its not on the thousands of girls…. and another thing … something that your government dont speak about its that El Paso Texas the city next to us on the border, its the parol city for all of the sexual perverts that your country MASS PRODUCE!!!!…. tell that to everyone too!!!… tell the truth!!!!… Im proud to be from Cd. Juarez, I love my city and Im trying to make it a better place to live in, but as every city in the world…its not perfect and we have our problems…. USA its very well known for causing problems… so instead of interfering in ours and others you should try to fix yours…. for example… educating your people on not using drugs, cause while the USA consumes it there will be people who sells it causing us problems too….