Burberry ad shocks with a double mastectomy for Valentine’s Day

Fashion brands love to be provocative, and perhaps Burberry has had enough of creating beautiful, award-winning ads like last year’s “Open spaces” which everyone agreed was stunning, including the Cannes Lions judges.

For Valentine’s Day, the British fashion brand is going for something much more controversial. Its new campaign includes a striking image of a couple kissing, one of whom is displaying their double mastectomy scars and outraging a lot of people in the process.

Also in fashion this week, Schiaparelli caused much controversy by sending models onto the Paris catwalk wearing dresses bizarrely adorned with full-sized faux lions heads. Cue animal rights activist claiming that the fashion show glamourised animal cruelty – and an awful lot of press coverage.

Is Burberry stoking the transgender culture wars or celebrating modern diversity? You decide.

Either way it’s all gone a bit Zoolander.

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About Emma Hall

Emma Hall is a journalist and editorial consultant and is the former Europe Editor of Ad Age, where she covered European marketing advertising, digital and media stories. She has written for newspapers including the Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times and the Telegraph, and was previously a section editor at Campaign. Emma started her career in New York as a researcher for a biography of Keith Richards.