Naomi Campbell bound and gagged on the front cover of V MagazineNaomi Campbell bound and gagged on the front cover of V Magazine

Campbell's soup
Wed, 31/08/2011 - 11:56 by BeccaDP

In a move that will no doubt have legions of beleaguered personal assistants sighing with relief, V Magazine has elected to bind and gag Naomi Campbell for their latest cover shoot, for an issue honouring the work of Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar.

The shoot, which sees Campbell reclining on pink sheets, bound with green rope and gagged with yellow tape, has seen very mixed reactions. The magazine intends for it to pay homage to Almodovar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! which sees Antonio Banderas play a mental patient who keeps an actress hostage, meaning to make her his wife. A lot of readers, however, have been left feeling uncomfortable, seeing it as demeaning Naomi and glamorising sexual violence.

Fair point: she is tied up, but the cartoonish colours and tongue-in-cheek humour of the shoot make this far less contentious than, say Lady Gaga’s constant bondage shoots, or Lindsay Lohan’s obsession with guns and blood.

Naomi took time out of her busy phone-chucking schedule to comment:

“I’m sure some have wanted to ‘tie me up and tie me down’ and perhaps others wanted to tape my mouth shut! But this is something I would only permit for this issue dedicated to Pedro as he always does everything ‘tongue-in-cheek.’”

And fair dos; anyone who has seen the film it references (or indeed any Almodovar film) shouldn’t be offended by this cover. And, more importantly, look how she’s modelling through that tape. That’s a proper smize she’s got going there. (If you don’t know what smizing is, you need to watch yourself some ANTM, girlfriend.)

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