Is smoking cool?
Did smoking just get cool again? It’s National No Smoking Day but Adele is puffing on the cover of The Gentlewoman, Kate Moss was seen ‘avin’ a fag on the Louis Vuitton AW11 catwalk and a new minimalist plain-paper packaging directive for cigarettes is being proposed in the UK. Discuss.
[Kate Moss image: Reuters]
9 March, 2011 @ 4:08 pm
Not cool simples!
9 March, 2011 @ 4:32 pm
Sadly, I think smoking has always been cool.
Although I personally don’t smoke or really like being around people who are smoking… or around people after they’ve been smoking… errr… it does LOOK cool.
Yes, that’s the difference I think for me… smoking isn’t cool but it does look cool and give off a pretty bad ass nonchalant ‘I’m happy to die when I’m 40’ vibe. Okay, it might be full of contradictions… but it seems to be true. xx
9 March, 2011 @ 5:46 pm
its almost like a good photo prop than anything else now. just something to hold, like a more attractive version of a blackberry. it gives both of these images a somewhat retro vibe xx
9 March, 2011 @ 7:39 pm
I think smoking is quite a disgusting habit but I do admit, when you’re in the right situation it came come across as quite cool..and I’m sorry but audrey hepburn, breakfast at tiffany’s..if she doesn’t look utterly glamourous then I don’t know what does
However it’s still a disgusting habit, I much prefer to watch other people look very cool in films having a quick puff..much more glamourous than in the real life.
9 March, 2011 @ 8:14 pm
Not any more- stood out in the rain because you can’t smoke in the pub, smelling of smoke all the time and spending all your money on cigarettes instead of enjoying yourself. I guess that does give it a certain air of exclusivity though. Here speaks the ex smoker!
10 March, 2011 @ 12:25 am
Weird… Like the cover but the catwalk is just so contrived!
10 March, 2011 @ 2:52 am
Well, it looks cool in these pictures. But in real life it’s just smelly and expensive. I like to think that most people are aware of this.
10 March, 2011 @ 10:11 am
Oh, no.
I hope not. I can’t associate the stink with the word “cool”.
10 March, 2011 @ 2:33 pm
Smoking is so not cool. I find the pictures lame. Smoking just makes you look a bit stupid, and buttheadedly stubborn.
10 March, 2011 @ 2:38 pm
I had this discussion with a few friends recently, and I mean I think it’s a revolting habit, and some people look cool, other don’t.
I had to say that Adele did look cool, and then a couple of days later that magazine cover surfaced. Seems odd though, that they are kind of advertising it despite all the government thoughts on not advertising it and even not putting cigarettes on display in a shop.
:)
daisychurchward.tumblr.com
10 March, 2011 @ 7:16 pm
Not cool.
10 March, 2011 @ 8:35 pm
Not cool at all in my opinion, only kinda lame. I used to think it was so cool when I was a teenager, but now (I’m 21) I just find it ugly. I believe it’s because I’ve grown up in a time when people acknowledge the health issues related to smoking, so for my generation in general I think it’s not cool, maybe for older generations who lived through an age where smoking was considered glamorous it is and sadly always will be cool.. I have friends who smoke, but even they don’t think it’s cool and try and hide their habit.
I think Kate Moss looks icky with that cigarette and Adele a bit ‘try hard’. And even Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s – would look better without the cigarette.
10 March, 2011 @ 8:57 pm
It’s fascinating reading these comments, especially the ones suggesting that for young people, smoking is really not seen as cool any more. Wow, maybe times really are changing?
11 March, 2011 @ 12:09 am
I think the show was amazing and really captured parisian style (especially with the smoking).
As for Kate Moss, she looked incredible and i cannot believe the press are giving her stick over a little bit of cellulite!
s x
http://weshootdownthestarsforourenjoyment.blogspot.com/
11 March, 2011 @ 9:28 am
I think the question could be is alcohol cool. Thinking of Galliano and a few other designers (I’ve known but won’t name) whose careers have suffered enormously from alcohol abuse. This is the demon drug, capable of far worse than tobacco. I think it’s clear that Galliano would never have said those things had he not been drunk.
11 March, 2011 @ 10:11 am
Yuck Laura, alcohol has never been cool – Nothing worse than annoying drunk people!
11 March, 2011 @ 1:23 pm
But alcohol is portrayed as cool, and far less dangerous than smoke when it seems just as risky. Double standards here I think.
11 March, 2011 @ 7:37 pm
NOT COOL AT ALL!!! and I am glad I am not the only one noticing that this has been an upcoming trend on the catwalk…HATE THIS!!! Ban those nasty cancer sticks! come visit my blog :) http://essesscouture.blogspot.com and by the way congrats on growing into your own website :)
12 March, 2011 @ 12:06 am
I hate to say it, but the whole thing felt a bit naff – like it belonged to a different era. As an ex-smoker, I get both sides of the argument, but these days, I don’t think smoking isn’t considered cool – you just have to look at the smokers huddled shamefaced outside Victoria station or crouched in tiny beer gardens. They don’t look cool, they look uncomfortable.
Can’t remember who, but some lame-o wrote (maybe Evening Standard or Metro) that Moss smoking was some kind of symbol of women being equal to men – what an utterly stupid thing to say seeing as smoking greatly increases our chances of her cervical and breast cancer. Realise I have ranted, but!
12 March, 2011 @ 3:16 pm
On a catwalk or on the cover of a magazine, sure. It’s something self-destructive and oral-fixated (or so Freud would say).
In real life, there’s nothing more pathetic than a smoker who refuses to give up. I’m a medical student and I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve seen people with amputated legs, with uncontrolled diabetes, who’ve had heart attacks or strokes, who are gasping for breath because they’ve got chronic obstructive lung disease who’ll sit in bed during the ward round absolutely reeking of stale tobacco because they’ve dragged themselves outside in their hospital gown to smoke furiously by the front door. The people who are cutting their lifespan down to months or a couple of years because they (and I quote an actual patient) ‘would rather die than give up’. If that’s not uncool, spineless and pathetic then I don’t know what is.
Audrey Hepburn with her fag-holder in Breakfast at Tiffanys looks absolutely gorgeous. But fast-forward fifty years to when she’s incontinent and brain-damaged due to a massive stroke? Naaah.
12 March, 2011 @ 11:44 pm
it’s the classic contradiction, the beautiful and the ugly.
kate inspired this.
http://www.chickswhosmoke.com
17 March, 2011 @ 11:16 am
for me smoking is cool for posters or anyting to do with advertising media,, but if a person is considering to smoke, then its your own risk,, personally speaking, im anti smoker,, when u c daily incident whereby ppl smoke near u, u wont even tink its cool,, its all abt a person’s mind n choice..